But those very numbers can easily create the illusion that we have a cultural industry, while in reality, these may only be isolated successes, not yet sustainable enough to form a system.
Late last year, when I attended a scientific conference on the cultural industry in Ho Chi Minh City, a seemingly simple observation sparked a notable reaction. When I suggested that the cultural industry in Vietnam was being understood in a "simplified" way – equating it with a few successful products – many attendees were surprised. Afterwards, quite a few shared that they had never clearly distinguished between "a successful event" and "an industrial system."
This confusion is not just a matter of perception. It is shaping how the cultural industry is perceived, and possibly how it is being developed in Vietnam.
Individual successes do not create a system.
Vietnam is witnessing impressive growth figures in the field of popular culture. But these specific figures also reveal a much more complex picture.
According to data from Box Office Vietnam and film market reports, Vietnamese film revenue in 2025 alone is expected to reach approximately 3,650 billion VND, nearly double that of 2024. Among the top 10 highest-grossing films, "Red Rain" broke the all-time record with approximately 714 billion VND, while six other films surpassed the 200 billion VND mark.
However, at the same time, more than half of Vietnamese films released commercially failed to break even. Over a dozen films suffered heavy losses, many were poorly received, and in some cases, revenue only reached 153 million VND, such as "The Pawnshop: You Play, You Pay." Or like Hoang Nam, a director whose debut film once grossed over 100 billion VND, whose project "The Generation of Miracles" (released late 2025) only earned about 853 million VND and left theaters after two weeks.
This polarization reveals a reality where the market has unprecedented "peaks," but still lacks "depth" and stability. The number of films that lose money still far outweighs the number of successful films, and debates about quality are increasingly prevalent.
In music, the picture is similar. The market is vibrant, but not yet stable. The first season of the "Brother Says Hi" concert series reached its ninth show (as of April 2026), but the second season ended prematurely due to slow ticket sales (only the second show has been completed so far). "Brother Overcomes Thousands of Obstacles" also managed to create many consecutive shows, but a format almost identical to "Beautiful Sister" couldn't achieve that success with a concert format, despite sharing the same producer.
On an individual level, My Tam's See The Light show might attract around 40,000 spectators at My Dinh Stadium, but most other artists still rely on smaller shows, commercial events, or music video sponsorships.
In the recording industry, the market size remains limited. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and analyses from Southeast Asia, the recording industry's revenue in Vietnam still accounts for a small proportion of the total entertainment market value and is significantly dependent on transnational platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, and Spotify.
Another noteworthy point is the limited "border-crossing" potential in both music and film. Many films achieve high domestic box office revenue but fail to generate significant international revenue, or are only released on a limited scale, primarily targeting the Vietnamese diaspora abroad. The same applies to music; even regional tours for Vietnamese artists are still non-existent, and overseas performances, if any, are primarily aimed at Vietnamese audiences.
This gap shows that the Vietnamese entertainment market is still far behind markets like South Korea or Thailand in terms of building the capacity to export entertainment products.
Therefore, while domestic figures and achievements reflect some success, they are insufficient to recreate a sufficiently robust industrial system. According to UNESCO's definition, cultural industry is not defined by isolated "peaks"; true cultural industry must be the ability to organize production, distribution, and consumption into a value chain that is repeatable and expandable over time. In this respect, Vietnam is still in the early stages.
There is no single "industry" in the cultural sector.
Part of the confusion stems from how we refer to the cultural industry as a "single industry." In reality, it's an interdisciplinary structure, and the creative industry is understood as a chain of activities from creation and production to distribution of products based on creativity and intellectual capital.
In that logic, fields like film, music, and digital content do not operate in isolation, but are linked within a single ecosystem of values. Film cannot be separated from media; music cannot be separated from digital platforms; fashion , tourism, and digital content operate within the same value logic. Even publishing, heritage, and video games are similar.
International models clearly demonstrate this, but in different ways.
In the United States, Hollywood is not just about film production; it's a global intellectual property system where a work can be exploited across theaters, digital platforms, theme parks, and consumer goods. According to the Motion Picture Association, the American film and television industry contributes more than $279 billion to the economy and supports more than 2.3 million jobs.
In the UK, the creative industries contribute over £120 billion annually (according to the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)), growing much faster than many traditional sectors thanks to creative clusters and supportive policies.
Meanwhile, South Korea has developed the Hallyu wave as a highly integrated ecosystem, where music, television, fashion, and consumer goods operate as a unified value chain, generating tens of billions of dollars in exports annually. South Korea's current soft power stems primarily from its cultural industries. And the South Korean cultural industry model exemplifies the ability to connect and disseminate values.
Vietnam is not lacking in creativity, but it needs to understand it correctly.
International comparisons lead to a clear conclusion: despite similarities in operational structure, no model can be replicated perfectly. Learning from international best practices is essential. However, copying models, whether Hollywood, the UK's creative hub, or K-pop, often leads to misalignment, where the product is upgraded but the supporting ecosystem doesn't exist accordingly.
In their studies on the creative economy, Richard Florida and Charles Landry both emphasize that each country needs to build an ecosystem based on its own cultural resources and institutional conditions. Creative economies can only transform their potential into sustainable value when three elements converge: creative infrastructure, skilled human resources, and industry linkages.
In Vietnam, all three of these factors are developing, but they are not yet strong enough, interconnected enough, or stable enough to form a complete system. In other words, Vietnam has creative capacity but lacks a clear model for transforming that energy into sustainable value.
A cultural industry is not measured by moments of explosive success. Instead, it is measured by its ability to successfully replicate. A successful film can lead to many follow-up projects; a successful artist can form an ecosystem; a cultural product can spread to tourism, fashion, and consumer goods.
What Vietnam is showing are noteworthy signals. But signals are not systems. Without a clear distinction, cultural policies and models can easily be built on measurable factors like revenue, views, and individual audience numbers, rather than long-term determinants like structure, connections, and reproducibility.
And then, the so-called "cultural industry" might just be an illusion, created by correct numbers, but with an incomplete understanding.
Le Quang Duc, M.Sc. - Chevening Scholar 2024-2025, M.Sc. in Cultural and Creative Industries, University of Sussex, United Kingdom
Source: https://tienphong.vn/hieu-dung-ve-cong-nghiep-van-hoa-post1852986.tpo
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