Source: Mingpao
Translated by: aZnangel @ http://asianuniverse.net/forums/



Niki Chow's 'Sergeant Tabloid' premieres first on Mainland website

Niki Chow and Michael Tse's new TVB series produced by Nelson Cheung Sergeant Tabloid will not be broadcasting in Hong Kong, but is releasing overseas instead. Yesterday, there was news online that a Mainland website (PPS) will exclusively air the series on April 3rd, while Malaysia's Astro On Demand and Australia's TVBJ will air on April 2nd. It looks like Sergeant Tabloid is a pretty high quality series since TVB and overseas clients are all confident and brave enough to first do an overseas release.

This is not the first time TVB series are released earlier than HK. On Monday (4/2), HK will be airing TV King Wayne Lai and Film King Kent Cheng's 2009 produced series The Greatness of a Hero. Earlier Alex Fong and Kate Tsui's A Great Way to Care was also an overseas release before its premiere in HK. This proves TVB really does value the overseas market, scheduling new series to release faster than in HK locally.

Producer Nelson Cheung expressed: "This is TVB's arrangements. The Greatness of a Hero was also released overseas first, perhaps the overseas needs a series to fill in the time slot, so Sergeant Tabloid gets to air first. Audience overseas also have their expectations on TVB series, and TVB believes its a suitable series to air. It's not just some random series chosen to be released overseas. We already told Niki Chow and Michael Tse about this, they both asked when the series will air in HK, but that will have to be left for TVB to make further arrangements." Nelson is not worried that Sergeant Tabloid will end up being a production stuck in the bottom of the production stock, the most important is to look at if the series itself has quality. He is also not worried this will affect the ratings in the future.

Niki appreciates the overseas clients for choosing her series, that she just completed, fresh out of the oven. She heard that the overseas clients are very interested in the production and hopes to enjoy the series earlier: "I'm happy to get chosen, and I'm not afraid it will affect the HK ratings when it airs in the future. This is not the first series that was warehoused. Actually it's different watching online verses on television and also there are some differences in the two versions of the series. We should not be too worried. As an artist, I have confidence in the arrangements TVB makes, it may be possible that the series will air in HK during the summer. I personally really look forward to it because I can put down a lot of what's on my mind. I asked my police friends a lot to gain more knowledge on the role and really done my homework."

Michael is also confident and not disappointed. He happily said: "It's better than the series being on the bottom of the production stock! Of course I'm just kidding. As an artist, of course I hope my series gets broadcast as soon as possible, but not need to be upset with TVB. The most important is to have good public response, no need to worry about the future TV ratings."