Online television giants such as Netflix and Hulu may have executives worried about the future of broadcast, but for local TV stations and businesses, the digital revolution means opportunity.
The declining cost of television broadcasting – which fell overnight after TV went digital in 2009 – has led to a proliferation of non-English-language television programs.
The number of full-time locally broadcast Vietnamese channels has nearly quadrupled in the past four years, said Francis Wilkinson, vice president of KJLA, the Los Angeles TV network channel that broadcasts nearly all of the Vietnamese-language stations in Southern California.
With the Vietnamese population making up more than 20 percent of the population, Fountain Valley is a market ripe for advertisers, with a number of Fountain Valley businesses peddling their goods and services.
Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center sponsors its own medical advice show to let people know about new medications and treatment programs.
It’s easy for local business owners to tap into the advertising potential of Southern California’s 385,000 Vietnamese residents, said Tom Truong, head of advertising sales at Saigon Entertainment Television.
While there are more than a dozen Vietnamese stations – the majority of which are broadcast by KJLA on channels 57.2 through 57.10 – they are similar, Truong said. Each channel must have national and community news, films, musical entertainment and educational talk shows about cooking, fashion and beauty, real estate, legal and medical advice.
Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center’s popular show, called “Medical Story,” brings guest doctors to speak about various procedures and practices and also tells the stories of patients and their experiences at the hospital. Show host Tanya Vu even did a piece about her experience getting a colonoscopy.
The TV stations cover community news by having anchors read reports written by local Vietnamese newspapers. For national news, the station subscribes to video services produced by CNN that are dubbed in Vietnamese.
Most films come from Vietnam, although Korean films have grown in popularity over the past 15 years, as have Thai films, Truong said.
“We don’t have money to purchase American” film copyrights, Truong said, laughing. “We’d love to, but it’s too expensive!”
Saigon Entertainment is one of the few stations that produces its own music, which is a source of pride for Truong, who said the quality of programming has gone down as the TV market has been flooded.
Truong is unable to provide ratings for Saigon Entertainment because there aren’t any to speak of. A ratings survey would be expensive, and Truong said it isn’t necessary.
For as little as $1,200 a month, a company can purchase four 30-second spots per day on Saigon Entertainment’s Channel 57.2.
Truong typically tells his clients that 200,000 to 300,000 people watch the channel. This number is speculation, but Truong said it doesn’t matter.
“If you don’t trust us, try advertising with us for one month,” he said. “If it works, you can keep advertising with us or increase the budget.”
At first glance, a show about medical practices may sound strange, but for non-English speakers, hospitals can be intimidating places because of the language barrier.
In an effort to reach Vietnamese-speaking clients, Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center sponsors medical talk shows, where doctors are invited to speak about medical procedures and treatments.
“We change topics all the time, so that everyone can relate,” said Vu, the host of “Medical Story,” Orange Coast’s medical advice program.
“It’s like CNN. … It keeps people updated.”
Last month, Dr. Bichlien Nguyen, director of breast cancer research at Long Beach Memorial who also hosts her own medical advice radio program, appeared on “Medical Story” to encourage young Vietnamese woman to get regular breast exams.
Asian women tend to have lower rates of breast cancer than Caucasian women, but the disease typically manifests about 10 years earlier, with lower survival rates, Nguyen said.
She said TV and radio programs are an important way for doctors to get the word out because they are still the most common ways that the older and newly arrived Vietnamese immigrants consume media.
“With digital media, (these shows) reach Vietnamese women all over the country,” Nguyen said.
“It’s just like advertising. People listen.”
DOCTOR BROADCASTS ADVICE ON VIETNAMESE COMMUNITY
Dr. Dean Ngo left Vietnam and arrived in San Jose in 1983, when he was 15. He would go on to study engineering at UC Berkeley and medicine at UC Irvine.
He arrived in Garden Grove in 2002, before moving his practice to Westminster in 2008. He treats 3,000 patients, about 80 percent of whom are Vietnamese. His medical advice radio show, “Health Is More Precious Than Gold,” airs from 7 to 7:30 p.m. Thursdays on Bolsa Radio, AM-1480.
Ngo talks about why TV and radio shows concerning medical care are so popular in the Vietnamese community.
Q. Why is it important to have a show like “Medical Story” or “Health Is More Precious Than Gold”?
A.Every channel needs news, sports, entertainment, shows that teach kids Vietnamese, and last but not least, you need a medical show. It makes the channel more valuable.
Hospitals want people to know their doctors so that patients will come in. They want to advertise themselves. It’s a business.
Q. Is it common to get medical advice from the TV or radio in Vietnam?
A.This is the culture; anyone can give medical advice. Even someone with a fourth-grade education can give you medical advice. It’s because they’re not held accountable.
In Vietnam, no one sues. Of the hundred times you give advice, if one in 100 gets better, you’re a hero and they give you a gift. But if the other 99 percent get worse or die, nobody blames you. Some people say you can drink the urine of lizards for asthma. Or if you can’t swim, if you put a dragonfly in your belly-button you can.
If I don’t know, I say I don’t know, and I go research it.
Q. What are some of the unique challenges that non-English-speaking patients face?
A.They get quiet and just leave it to God. They don’t have English and can’t tell the doctor they have allergies. They can’t talk about their medical history.
If they go to the hospital in the middle of the night and there’s no Vietnamese translators around, sometimes doctors don’t want to use the translator phone and patients often have to rely on their kids or a Vietnamese nurse.
If your HMO says they can book you in two months and you have acute diarrhea, then you have to call the radio and talk with Dr. Dean Ngo.
Q. How do Western hospitals compare to the medical care in Vietnam?
A.It’s a wide spectrum. Some people say it’s so much better than Vietnam, but the majority says, “Forget about Vietnam’s low standards of care.” They want the VIP treatment.
But I always tell people, ‘Nobody loves you more than you do.’ You’ve got to know what’s going on with your body. Don’t rely on anybody but yourself.
Q. Are there enough Vietnamese-speaking doctors to service the entire Vietnamese-speaking population in Southern California?
A.They say that there are more medical doctors’ offices than noodle houses in Little Saigon. The problem is, are they effective? If you stop learning and you’re still practicing with medical knowledge from the 1970s, that’s scary.
Contact the writer: jenelson@ocregister.com or 657-217-2328
