Media maverick gets right verdict on interactive TV show
It's a game show viewers in the city still haven't seen but media maverick Robert Chua Wah-peng's viewer participation show format, You be the Judge, is getting attention everywhere else.
The concept, which features two opposing sides in a litigation-type dispute and allows the home audience to decide who wins and by how much, has just been licensed to a broadcaster in the Ukraine. So far, BBC One has produced and aired a version and Singapore's TV1 also licensed and made a local series.
A pilot was also produced by American network CBS in 2005. Ukraine may not be the biggest market around but at the Olympics it is on the edge of being in the top 10 as far as medal count. Perhaps if the show takes off there, look out Lithuania and Belarus!
Chua, meanwhile, continues to dabble in different media enterprises. It seems he's expanded his portfolio from his own production house and the highly touted Interactive Channel (Tictv.com) to include something called the Health and Lifestyle Channel. Further, he informed us he's working on an internet and TV variation of You be the Judge to be launched on the mainland soon concentrating on family and social issues.
However, given the controlling nature of the central government, we wonder if he will have to rename the show, 'You be the Judge but the Party will Decide'.
