Asia Television
Asia Television Limited is a digital media and broadcasting company in Hong Kong. Established as Hong Kong's first television service under the name Rediffusion Television on 29 May 1957, it shifted to terrestrial television in 1973 and was renamed Asia Television in 1982. ATV operated two principal over-the-air channels: the Cantonese ATV Home and the English ATV World.
Despite its relatively small market share, ATV received awards for its programmes. Among its notable successes was its local version of the British game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in 2001, which increased viewership. After 2000, ATV faced a gradual decline in production quality and viewership, as well as financial difficulties – a process that accelerated under the leadership of Wang Zheng, a major shareholder. ATV's credibility was severely damaged in 2011 after its news department had falsely reported the death of Jiang Zemin.
On 1 April 2015, Hong Kong's Executive Council announced that ATV's broadcast licence would not be renewed. ATV's channels ceased over-the-air transmission on 1 April 2016. ATV announced plans to continue business as a digital and satellite broadcaster. The company announced its subscription-based internet content streaming operations in December 2017.
History
1949–1981: Early years
, the predecessor to ATV, began as a wired radio broadcasting service in 1949. The original office was located on Arsenal Street and Hennessy Road, Wan Chai, Hong Kong. It launched its subscription-based TV service on 29 May 1957. In 1959, Rediffusion was moved to the offices that were occupied by Fortis Bank Tower.In 1962, Rediffusion broadcast the first-ever fundraising special in the wake of Hong Kong's Typhoon Wanda, which caused 130 deaths. The first televised artist training course was broadcast in 1966 under the title Ying Li’s Voice.
In October 1968, new shows were broadcast on Rediffusion, including variety, sports, and other leisure, attracting more viewers. The most notable show was "Master Q". It also led the trend in acquiring Japanese anime shows, including Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy in 1966.
Rediffusion was given a free-to-air television broadcasting licence in 1973 by the Hong Kong Government, which had switched to using wireless television. Rediffusion and TVB formed a duopoly in free-to-air terrestrial TV broadcasting in Hong Kong for more than 40 years. A third broadcaster, Commercial Television, entered the market in September 1975, but in the face of intense competition from the two rival broadcasters, ceased transmissions in August 1978.
In 1976, the Hong Kong government introduced Mark Six, a new lottery system that was broadcast twice a week on Rediffusion. The first host of that show was Ha Chun-Chau.
1981–2002: Development
In 1981, Rediffusion in the UK sold 61% of its shares in RTV to an Australian consortium. In July 1982, a Chinese enterprise called Far East Group, owned by the Chiu family, took a stake in the company, resulting in Far East Group and the Australian consortium each holding 50% of RTV’s shares. The move marked the first time that a Chinese enterprise had partly owned RTV. RTV was renamed "Asia Television" later in the same year. The company operating ATV frequently recorded losses, and in January 1984, following the withdrawal of the Australian enterprise, the Chiu family acquired the company.In August 1987, the shares of ATV were put up for sale. One year later, Asia Television Limited, the Lim family, and the New World Group each owned one-third of the shares. At that time, the members of the board of directors included Deacon Chiu, Lim Por-yen, Fang Li and Cheng Yu-tung.
On 30 January 1989, the Chiu family sold its shares of ATV to New World Group and Lai Sun Group for HK$237.5 million. The New World Group held half of the shares, while the Lam family owned one-third and Lai Sun held one-sixth. At the same time, Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau joined as a minority shareholder. Cheng Yue-tung became chairman, Lim Por Yen vice-chairman, and Selina Chow administrative director.
2002–2010: Ownership shift
In November 2002, Lai Sun Development, which was heavily indebted following the HK$7 billion acquisition of the Furama Hotel in 1997 at the height of the property bubble, announced that it would sell its 32.75% stake to the company's chief executive, Chan Wing-kee, for HK$360 million in cash.In June 2007, Chan, along with, chairman of Phoenix Satellite Television Holdings Limited, established a company that later bought most of ATV's shares. Afterwards, Chan Wing-kei became Administrative Director General. Following the change in shareholders, the company introduced changes to its production direction, marketing strategy, and human resources management. The network increased the purchase of foreign programmes, such as the South Korean drama Autumn in My Heart.
In December 2008, City Telecom chairman Ricky Wong Wai Kay was assigned as the new chief executive, while former PCCW deputy chairman Linus Cheung Wing-lam became executive chairman. After just 2 weeks, Ricky Wong resigned from his position due to many factors. In early 2009, Taiwanese billionaire Tsai Eng-Meng signed a preliminary agreement to become a key shareholder of Alnery, a company that controls 47.58% of ATV. Tsai has agreed to inject HK$1 billion in the form of convertible bonds. Tsai and Payson Cha have since debated over control of the station.
2010–2015: Decline
Hong Kong's other main television broadcaster, TVB, was regarded as the driving force behind ATV's decision to transform its pay TV operation to terrestrial TV broadcasting. For many years, TVB has been the predominant rating leader in Hong Kong. Its programmes often capture 90–95% of the viewing audience. In the previous renewal cycle, ATV’s licence was renewed in December 2004 for another 12 years. Under the new terms of the licence, the Broadcasting Authority required that ATV World provide bilingual subtitles on news, weather, and current affairs shows, educational shows, and public service announcements, as well as more cultural and arts shows. In its final years, viewing figures for ATV Home had fallen sharply, as the TV station had begun to cater more to the interests of the mainland Chinese audience, who could now legally receive the channel. In the Pearl River Delta area of China, ATV used to enjoy a 70% ratings share in the late 1990s, largely due to rebroadcasting rights. The ratings share has since reduced to 2–3%. The shift resulted in Hong Kong viewers complaining that programmes aired on the channel are "old-fashioned" and not in tune with the preferences of the Hong Kong TV audience.In 2010, Chinese property businessman Wang Zheng became known as ATV's "major shareholder" and began to exercise actual control over the board of directors when his relative-in-law Wong Ben Koon, who is a Hong Kong resident, purchased 52% of ATV's shares from Cha's brothers and other shareholders, although Wang himself was not a member of the board. Observers believed this arrangement bypassed Hong Kong’s broadcasting regulations, which forbid non-Hong Kong residents to own and control local television stations. Stating his plan to shape ATV into "Asia's CNN" and "Hong Kong's conscience", Wang replaced the production of television drama series with talk shows, which contributed to further loss of ATV's audience and advertisers.
On 6 July 2011, ATV News falsely reported the death of Jiang Zemin, former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. Wang Zheng, at that time, who was rumoured to be a distant relative of Jiang, was believed to be the source. The Communications Authority fined ATV HK$300,000 for the false news report and later another HK$1 million after concluding Wang Zheng had been unlawfully interfering with ATV's management. Wang's cousin James Shing Pan-yu was forced to quit his role as executive director. ATV came under heavy pressure from the community when its ATV Focus smeared anti-Moral and National Education pupils and when it broadcast a live show of Wang leading a group of artists dancing in front of the Central Government Offices to call for the government not to issue new free-to-air licences.
On 19 June 2013, the Hop Chung Tourist Car Company – a long-time transport contractor of ATV – filed a lawsuit asking the High Court to wind up ATV over unpaid bills totalling HK$900,000. ATV executive director James Shing denied the station was experiencing financial problems. In 2014, the court ruled in Tsai's favour that Wang Zheng was responsible for ATV's business failure and appointed Deloitte to seek a white knight to take over Wong Ben-koon's controlling shares.
ATV had also failed to pay wages to its employees; at the end of December 2014, the company said it would shortly pay half the back wages of its staff for September. By early January, the company still owed the balance of salaries outstanding since November, and there were several terminations and redundancies as a result of the operating difficulties. ATV and its executive director, Ip Ka-po, received 34 prosecution notices from the Labour Department concerning unpaid wages from July through September. In late January 2015, the company, still facing liquidity issues, controversially advanced the outstanding salaries to employees for December on condition that employees signed a loan agreement with the company belonging to the major shareholder, Wong Ben-koon.
2015–2017: Loss of licence
On 31 March 2015, ATV announced during its evening news that its main shareholders had agreed to sell their stake in the company to Ricky Wong's Hong Kong Television Network. Although he had met with ATV staff a few days prior, Wong denied that a deal had been made, while legislators argued that the report was intended to mislead the Executive Council into believing that ATV was in the process of addressing its financial issues.On 1 April 2015, the Executive Council ruled that it would not renew ATV's broadcasting licence. Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Gregory So explained that ATV's performance was "unsatisfactory" and had "clearly deteriorated after the mid-term review of its licence", and that the Communications Authority " serious doubts as to whether ATV would be capable of making the necessary improvements, and whether it has the financial capability to deliver its investment plans, and indeed to continue its business as a going concern". As Hong Kong law requires broadcasters to be given one year's notice in the event of licence revocation, the licence was provisionally extended to 1 April 2016, after which ATV was required to cease broadcasting. Concurrently, the government announced the approval of an over-the-air licence to a new broadcasting company, HK Television Entertainment. The government also allowed RTHK to take over ATV's analogue broadcast spectrum; RTHK planned to use the spectrum to broadcast an expanded version of its channel 31 service.
On 7 February 2016, after over 200 employees resigned from the company in the previous week, ATV was forced to suspend its news programming due to a lack of staff. The broadcaster planned to restore newscasts following the Chinese New Year holiday. The Communications Authority threatened to fine ATV over the suspension, as it violated conditions of its licence requiring the daily broadcast of the 15-minute evening newscasts in Cantonese and English. On 22 February 2016, the Communications Authority announced that it would issue a 30-day suspension to ATV effective April 2016 for violating licence conditions relating to news programming and missed licence fee payments. Although ATV will have ceased broadcasting by then due to the expiration of its licence, the CA stated that it still issued the penalty out of fairness, because not doing so "would send a wrong message to the broadcasting sector, that a beleaguered and cash-strapped licensee would be given a carte blanche to contravene the BO and licence conditions" with few consequences.
On 24 February 2016, the High Court of Hong Kong appointed the firm Deloitte to serve as a provisional liquidator for ATV's assets. On 29 February 2016, Deloitte announced that as part of the liquidation process, all of ATV's staff would be laid off. On 3 March 2016, Deloitte announced that it was in the process of winding down ATV's operations and planned to shut down the network as soon as possible. However, RTHK stated that it would not be ready to take over ATV's analogue spectrum with its new programming until 10 March at the latest. On 7 March, only a day after the layoffs took effect, China Cultural Media Group reached a deal to invest in ATV and pay outstanding staff wages for 2016 and operating costs for March, allowing the network to rehire 160 employees to continue operating ATV in the interim. However, the outstanding wages would not be paid until 2 April. An ATV spokesperson stated that the broadcaster was considering alternate outlets for its programming following the shutdown, including the internet.