Malaysians say the Awesome TV channel is ‘racist’. We looked into them

News channels nowadays be wildin’. Netizens were outraged when local news broadcast Berita 7:57 by Awesome TV  made a rather controversial statement:

“All Malay voters must fulfil their responsibility and head out to vote, if they do not want political power to be seized by other races if Pakatan Harapan (PH) wins.” – Berita 7:57 newscaster (translated from BM by Cilisos)

Terang terang sebar prejudis kaum, di TV tanpa berselindung.

Ini politik pecah belah yang kita mesti elak. Nak harmoni? Nak kestabilan? Ini bukan caranya. pic.twitter.com/kMVwVPY69h

— aku/saya (@bumilangit) November 4, 2022

Citing a survey by Huayan Institute (Centre of Malaysian Studies), which showed that 80% of Malaysian Chinese were likely to vote in the upcoming GE15, their quote prompted angry reactions from the local Twittersphere, with former Klang MP Charles Santiago calling it ‘racist to the core’ and ‘fear-mongering’.

Despite the backlash, it doesn’t seem that Awesome TV are very apologetic about what they put out, as they defended their statement, saying:

“Some parties with political interests, especially those who are not supportive of the Bumiputera agenda, have manipulated Berita 7:57’s objective to become racial on social media.” – spokesman for Awesome TV

We’re not exactly sure how it was ‘some parties’ who made it ‘become racial’, when ‘other races taking over’ is literally mentioned in the report, but oh well, it is what it is. Although the survey itself seems legit and doesn’t appear to be racist on its own (it’s been quoted by other major news outlets like SCMP), we decided to look into Awesome TV out of curiosity, and found that there’s been another incident where they said something similar.

This isn’t even their first time being accused of racism

We’re not sure which copy editor passed the script for this, but pass it did. In a not-so-subtle attack on former Securities Commission (SC) executive chairman Syed Zaid Albar following his sudden resignation in early 2022, Berita 7:57 accused him of ‘not helping two Malay companies’, whom they claimed are the ‘backbone of the Malay economy’.

“If these Bumiputera companies are not helped, the Bumiputera will lose whatever stakes they have in the economic pie.” – Berita 7:57 newscaster

In the same report, Berita 7:57 called Syed Zaid a ‘non-Malay’, before bizarrely appearing to contradict themselves by asking until when Malay officials will continue to persecute their own people.

Apa benda ni? pic.twitter.com/Riwu3tF3lu

— KL (@Klchan3) April 30, 2022

The alleged Serba Dinamik link

But of course, some would be inclined to believe there is more than meets the eye when it comes to this issue. You see, under Syed Zaid’s leadership, the SC had charged one of the Malay companies mentioned in the report, namely, Serba Dinamik with submitting a false statement, before the Attorney-General withdrew those charges and Syed Zaid mysteriously resigned.

Some journalistic sleuthing by news portal Focus Malaysia revealed that Awesome’s managing director Johan bin Mohamed Ishak had once served as Serba Dinamik’s independent non-executive director for 6 months. However, he resigned from that job alongside Awesome co-director Dato’ Adam bin Mohamed Ilyas’s father, Datuk Ilyas Pakeer Mohamed over a disagreement with the company.

The presumption that one might have based on that article could be that Awesome allegedly has links with Serba Dinamik, which would explain their anti-Syed Zaid stance… BUT, we gotta say here that just because one of their directors was with two companies, it doesn’t mean that the two companies are linked. We actually went the extra mile and bought Awesome TV’s SSM certificate (which also showed Datuk Ilyas Pakeer’s son Dato’ Adam on the board of directors), but there wasn’t anything fishy we could find, so as far as legitimacy goes, there isn’t really much to be said.

There is that whole other issue of Awesome TV allegedly not paying their content producers and talents (including film producer A Aida and Azmin Ali’s brother Azwan Ali), but they’ve strongly denied this. In any case, the National Film Development Corporation Malaysia (FINAS) has stepped in to mediate, and the case is ongoing, so we’ll just let that one play out.

The real question to be asked here is…

How far can a channel go before it’s taken off the air?

As a matter of fact, we actually have laws that addresses what content providers can and cannot do; most notably with the Communications and Multimedia Act:

“No content applications service provider, or other person using a content applications service, shall provide content which is indecent, obscene, false, menacing, or offensive in character with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass any person.” – S. 211, Communications and Multimedia Act 1998

As far as we understand, Awesome TV is a free-to-air channel that can be watched from their website or though MyTV and ASTRO. As a local channel, this means that Awesome TV itself is bound to these laws, rather than MyTV and ASTRO in this particular case.

Although Awesome TV has come out to say their news report was ‘not racist’, the fact that so many Malaysians called them out does show that what they said has indeed offended:

Awesome TV is available on Astro, with a viewership above 1 million. I am sure @astroonline is fine with Awesome TV’s inaccurate and racial 7:57 content.

I am sure, Malaysians subscribers of Astro, knows what to do. #monopoly #boycott #racist

My Astro package is cancelled

— 🇲🇾‎إدوين 🇲🇾 (@SimpletonED) November 5, 2022

To put things into perspective, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has taken action on social media users for arguably pettier things in the past (such as the ‘mandarin oranges causes C-19’ fake news with alleged racial undertones). Would it also be warranted in taking action against Awesome TV in this case?