The Abused Award

AJL ended few weeks ago followed by echoes of dissatisfaction. It is still heard until today radiating with heat, heat and more packed heat.

The annual music award are mend to recognize music producer and composer adds a sense of academic in an industry which are known for stardom and glamour. In other words, AJL primarily recognize the person behind each tunes and notes regardless how alluring or handsome the singer is (which delivers the songas an artpiece). Having industry’s grandmaster in the shape of M.Nasir as chief judge clearly define the anugerah of all that mentioned above. It sets AJL apart from SMS based awards which is, after all the gimmicky of putting power into people hands, still had judges to sort things out.

Of course, the award had its share of criticism through voices that were unable to conform to the fact that the anugerah was given to a newcomer songstress, Ana Rafalli. There was a little commotion back during the night she was crowned winner; with the usual uneducated tantrum of throwing water bottles, tissue paper rolls and whatnots. While on the mainstage Ana was being showered with glimmering colourful confetti’s and brought back home a handsome amount of cash.

Many would have never heard of Ana Rafalli. Ana who? A sweet baju kurung totting girl who gained fame through the power of Youtube. Similar to the case of Marie Digby, she flamboyantly uploaded her crooning videos which eventually sparked the creative bulb inside of Aidid Alfian head to pick her up and morphed her into full time recording artist. In just a snap, she grabbed an anugerah- it shook the corridors of entertainment industry nationwide to witness such meteoric rise. In the after event interview, M.Nasir noted the frustrated reaction by some pockets of people, but as an old-timer in the field, no matter how properly things were done, not everybody are happy with it. The old timer even put a slight hint to his face: abaikan mereka ( just let them be – sore ).

Personally, there’s no issues with the decision putting her as a winner. Her efforts put to produce and compose the song on her own should be applauded; the award should gave her a kick start for a future all-rounder artist. We had enough of express-made pretty faced or jambu boy band delivering songs created by others. Surely M.Nasir has made a commendable choice.

Yet, the post-event interview also made M.Nasir tired due to some pressure put on him. Not that M.Nasir’s too handicap in making judgment ( remember Mawi? Who was the headmaster of AF? Who doesn’t like him during his heydays? ); M.Nasir had been the father figure or reference point to the industry, yet the entertainment industry cooperate agenda has its hand behind all handling out of awards. This is what pressuring and bothering M.Nasir.

Choke us with maximum exposure

If this starts to sound like a disgruntled dissident voices of blogging community, then you should think again; we shall look at a bigger picture of the anugerah. Who hold this anugerah? It was TV3, a private free-to-air television channel that had been running for 26years. In the past ten years, TV3 had made effort taking over other private free to air rival channel ntv7, in the process they had cultivated new channels such as 8tv and tv9; thus leaving the private television channels dominated by these oligarchy of channels..

These channels come together and collectively forms an umbrella group known as Media Prima, a conglomerate which owns a couple of other mass media medium such as dailies ( NST, Berita Harian ),radio station ( FlyFM, HotFM ) and physical advertisement space. These are very extensive media group that had its arm coiling onto different types of people all over the nation. Even the channel programming was arranged in a way to target different audiences, age, ethnic, income groups. For example we would never see TV3 and 8TV airing comedy simultaneously as this would split viewership amongst these channels. Even if they do air comedy simultaneously ( or whatsoever genre of movies) during similar time slot, it would be of different languages, each aiming to garner the viewer groups.

All this corporate strategy explains how AJL was given maximum exposure all throughout the free to air private channels across Malaysia. From interviews to cook shows ( or parenting shows); anything that wasn’t sponsored by other private companies; have had host reminding the audience about the pending anugerah. Radio station would pompously hold talk shows speculating the winners for the anugerah. Newspapers under Media Prima would have weekend center spread doing article about the anugerah like it’s an election result analysis. This intense publicity clout was done to create fever pitch anticipation ( honestly, the more you know about this mechanism, the less anticipation you had prior to AJL ). The whole Media Prima medias works seamlessly as mental conditioning tool.

It never ends swiftly; the anugerah would have be made like tsunami that leave its deep and lasting path. All Media Prima mediums would still throng the anugerah even when Stadium Bukit Jalil had been cleaned from tissue rolls messes due to Ana Raffali shocking victory. The next morning HotFM would untiringly play different songs from the anugerah; assuming its royalty free; they might rake clean profit from these airplays without knowing their audience had terribly wanted the audibly crispier sound of the studio version. The AJL recording of sound were a complete mess of noise unsuitable for airing on the FM, it would be a different story when previewed on television. This would carry on for weeks with the FM announcing that its an ‘exclusive’ previews like the deejay had to delve into some web filled archive room to collect the oh-so-exclusive-recordings.

Newspapers under the conglomerate would publish petty news during the entertainment event, like whose performance looked like illuminati advocate in subliminal form? and strings of other publicity hungry types of headlines. Winners of best performance were interviewed about how they execute their gimmicks ( surely, a report on Hafiz shot-on-stage can fill half a page )

Oh, not forgetting, channels of the conglomerate would squeeze every inch of the anugerah that can be made into full-duration content for their respective channels. They did whatever it takes including freezing or slowing down the motion and query what Cheryl Samad felt in the dressing room when evidently she had hosted the anugerah for ten straight years.

Can AJL be an event on its own rights? The corporate decision to ripping materials off from AJL had tarnished the anugerah to the extent of devaluing it. Can someone from the corporate table tell me does the cost saving synergy worth it?

Backdoor Award, the Anus.

All the frustration with Media Prima would have been worst if Astro do not exist in the industry. Nearly half of the artists competing during the anugerah night were of the highly popular show; Akademi Fantasia, the talent search reality show by Astro. Astro produces a stable of highly capable artist appealing to wide spectrum of audiences, far better than what Media Primas had able to produce through their desperate rollout of shameful and sometime last-minuitesque reality shows ( TV3s Mentor, LG MyStarz and Gangstarz; Ntv7s Audition; 8TV One-In-A-Million and Malaysian Idol )

Akademi Fantasia, although a clear ripped off idea of La-Academia from Venezuela; were executed nicely and Astro calmly never needed another reality talent search show. Akademi Fantasia has strong presence to wipe the floor clean and steal the thunder from Media Primas mediocre stable of six reality shows. Akademi Fantasia is on its 9^th run and still amongst the highest rated programs in Malaysia.

So those mediocre products, where can they be leveraged? Of course through long established anugerahs like the AJL, which untiringly build its reputation through 24 years of continuous awards. Now it had to be sold cheaply to help float drowning products of OIAM, Malaysian Idol and Mentor. Names like Faisal Tahir, Black, Tomok, Jaclyn Victor and if possible One Nation Emcees. Sadly names like Wana, Suki, Daniel had their artistic career neutered as it would be too ridiculous to award them first place in AJL.

It is clear that AJL are being abused to leverage ‘their’ artists. Its not too far to see that if Astro were never to exist in broadcast business today, we might see Black as the champion, Faisal Tahir as first runner up and Tomok as second runner up. It’s a purely corporate strategist that would chop off M.Nasir hand to cast his votes on Ana Raffali that night. People would be hurrying home from the award in a state of pandemonium to know that songs they hardly heard won the 24years running anugerah.

M.Nasir would have to appear on television with poker face and sell himself cheap to admit that Media Prima artist had intangible artistic quality although their song never received that heavy radio play deemed as measure of popularity.

Yet, the corporate intervention still has hearts to put first runner up to one of ‘their’ artist. Nevermind, maybe it’s hard to grasp the idea that their artist lacked the quality to compete with Akademi Fastasia huge stable of much popular and talented artists, not forgetting emerging independent artist like Yuna and Ana Raffali that owe no allegiance to neither Astro nor Media Prima. AJL had been abused to leverage one of ‘their’ artist; someday people might just question the credibility of AJL never hesitantly leaves AJL for another anugerah.

When that scenario comes true, AJL organizers cannot take that abaikan mereka treatment; they had to approach Price WaterHouseCoopers to count the weekly votes and scramble to bring back the credibility. Hell, when this abuse goes for a long time they might change the name to AJM ( Anugerah Juara Melodi ) or AJLB ( B for Baru ) or just Anu, reflecting the cockiness how this award is given.