I have seen the documentary called 'Becoming a King' produced by National Geographic with the support from Finas and the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage, which was reported to cost US$200,000, or RM700,000. I thought the costs were far too exorbitant because the documentary doesn't look expensive at all.

They mostly shot at places that are available and covered events leading to the coronation of the Yang diPertuan Agong recently. This sort of production can hardly be called a documentary. It is more like a magazine programme in the style of 'Majalah 3'.

In fact, if the ministry was not too enamoured of the National Geographic Channel, they could have got any local production company to produce it, so that it could be shown on the same channel and at a lower cost.

My estimation of the production that was shown on the National Geographic channel is just RM200,000. Some of my friends in the industry even said it should only be RM100,000.

The production is too superficial. Worse, it looks at the Malaysian monarch and the events leading to the coronation of the King from a foreigners' point of view with the King speaking in English when he should be speaking in Malay so that what he says is subtitled.

This is something which the channel ought to feel ashamed of, considering they are the ones who normally offer local producers to produce documentaries for them, for which they paid for all the expenses, so that they are not too costly. And considering that they were supposed to produce the documentary on a joint venture basis.

If they had initiated the production, it would have cost them quite a bit. They may not even be given the permission to shoot in the palaces in Kuala Lumpur and Terengganu and follow the King to show him engaging in some sporting activities such as horse-riding.

Now, it is quite evident that the channel not only gets an exclusive coverage of the coronation of the King that they could show on their channel, but also a tidy profit from the production.

There is another 'documentary' that the ministry is working with the same channel that has not been shown yet. But from what I have seen, there is not much that we can expect to see from it.

If the National Geographic Channel purports to be a documentary channel, they should come out clean and have a special screening of the documentary to Malaysian filmmakers and have a discussion on it. They had only shown it in a preview before the documentary was broadcast but those who were involved with the production such as the producers and directors were absent.