ENGLISH MOVIES ON CHANNEL 5 OF TELEVISION CORPORATION OF SINGAPORE

Mr R. Ravindran asked the Minister for Information and the Arts, from June 1997 to May 1998, (a) what is the number of English movies shown on Channel 5, Television Corporation of Singapore (TCS) during prime time which have been shown before; (b) what is the number of times these movies have been shown before; and (c) whether there is a limit on the number of times movies are repeated by TCS.

BG George Yong-Boon Yeo: TCS has two prime-time movie slots - on Mondays and Fridays at 8.30 pm. In the past one year up to May 1998, a total of 100 movies were shown during these two timeslots. Of these, 39 movies were re-runs, of which 12 titles had been shown more than twice.

Re-runs are unavoidable. The number of blockbuster movies released by Hollywood in a good year is 10 to 15 titles. This is not enough to sustain two prime-time movies a week. Also, in the broadcast business, movies are normally priced and sold for multiple runs.

TCS' research, however, indicates that re-runs of blockbuster movies are still popular as TCS spaces out re-runs on prime-time by at least 12 months. It is the response of the audience which sets a limit on the number of re-runs shown by TCS.