Just a thought - take ATV off air

How much longer must television audiences stomach substandard programs thrust down their throats day in and day out?

No wonder many viewers don't bother switching on their TV sets except to watch the daily main newscasts.

I don't blame them. There hasn't been anything worth watching for a very long time.

It was, however, amazing to hear at a Legislative Council panel meeting yesterday that ATV had complained to the Broadcasting Authority, accusing its major rival, TVB, of a monopoly.

Even more amusing was an official saying the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau found no evidence to suggest TVB had any such thing on broadcasting.

Any child can tell you TVB has dominated the industry for God knows how long. It not only has a huge market share, but also a high-handed policy.

The major reason is because there's no real competition. What's really stunning is that it took so many years with so many billions of dollars flushed down the drain for "loser" ATV to realize the fact. Who can it blame?

A little bird in the corridors of power recently whispered to me that officials were urged to revoke ATV's license and award it to other suitors. But they decided against this for political reasons - the ATV stakeholders are locked in a lawsuit launched by the station's Taiwanese shareholder, while recent fund injections came mostly from mainland interests.

Hopefully, with the current one- month public consultation on free-to- air TV licenses, viewers can look forward to something better.

Earlier this month, at the start of the exercise, the government revealed details of the bids by Cable TV, PCCW, and Hong Kong Broadband. PCCW asked to be exempted from providing an English channel, while Cable TV and HK Broadband both intend to invest more than HK$1 billion in the first six years of operation.

Cable envisions spending 96 percent of its money on programming, while Broadband would allocate about one- third of that amount to the same area.

PCCW said it would inject more than HK$600 million in the first three years, but didn't break down how much would be spent on programming, and how much on operations.

As to the number of channels, Broadband expects to start with 12, gradually rising to 20. Cable plans two 24-hour channels - one Cantonese, one English - airing overseas programs.

PCCW doesn't want to operate an English channel, saying it would lose money because the local market is already over saturated. But it would compromise if the government insists.

PCCW also seeks exemption from complying with an existing requirement that broadcasters provide a certain amount of programming that is "wholly of Hong Kong origin" - describing it as too costly.

Promises, promises. On paper, all these submissions appear impressive.

But let's hope our ministers and officials responsible will look a lot deeper into the whole industry and its problems before opening up our airwaves.

Viewers certainly don't want to see a transplant of the messy Taiwanese TV industry into Hong Kong - and the danger of any TV station being made use of politically.

Nor do we want a carbon-copy of the current degrading broadcasting industry in the mainland.

Competition is only good when its healthy.

英文虎報
Central Station | By Mary Ma