Aspiring broadcaster Forever Top sets out HK$4.1b plan for English and Chinese shows in Hong Kong
Broadcaster pledges more than 400 hours of shows a week if it is granted precious spectrum
Aspiring television company Forever Top plans to roll out more than 400 hours of Chinese- and English-language shows per week - nearly half of them local productions - if it succeeds in securing some of the free-to-air broadcasting spectrum to be vacated by ailing station ATV.
Details of the consortium's HK$4.1 billion ambition were fleshed out in its proposal to the government, revealed yesterday, amid concerns on how to allocate the digital broadcasting frequencies, a scarce public resource.
On the drawing board are three free channels to be transmitted in digital format, including round-the-clock Chinese programming and a sports channel, according to the group led by property tycoon David Chiu Tat-cheong and MGM China co-chairman Pansy Ho Chiu-king.
But Forever Top's request for the spectrum from ATV, whose licence will not be renewed when it expires in April, hinges on it being granted a television licence by the chief executive and Executive Council, the Communications Authority noted.
Forever Top was just one of several new and budding entrants, on top of existing broadcasters, eyeing the spectrum, Sin Chung-kai, a lawmaker and regular commentator on broadcasting policy, said.
"There are too many monks and too little gruel," Sin said of the intense competition.
Under its HK$4.1 billion plan, Forever Top will invest about HK$2 billion in programming in its first six years, documents released by the authority for a six-week public consultation on the licence application show.