Government’s effort to thwart HKTV smacks of politics

What is really going on over the government's seemingly remorseless attempts to prevent the public from getting access to Ricky Wong Wai-kay's Hong Kong Television Network (HKTV)?

Let's quickly deal with the latest move to thwart HKTV, in which the administration has insisted that the company needs to apply for a television licence if it is broadcasting to more than 5,000 households.

You can be pretty sure that the bureaucrats will be able to conjure up grounds for this stipulation. Governments are good at finding legal reasons for politically motivated decisions. And there can no longer be a scintilla of doubt that the determination to thwart HKTV is not only political but most likely emanates from instructions issued up north.

Many people, including Wong himself, are puzzled over why this largely entertainment-based channel should have found itself in the eye of a political storm.

As ever, because of the closed-box way this government operates, it is hard to be sure of the reasons. But assumptions can be made.

The most likely explanation is that when the time came for television companies to apply for free-to-air licences, Hong Kong's masters insisted that they should be granted to the two established stations that had proved their loyalty. Additional licences were given to the son of Hong Kong's richest tycoon and to Cable TV, also controlled by Beijing loyalists.