Providing mobile TV services should not require a licence, HKTV tells court
Mobile television services are not covered by the Broadcasting Ordinance, HKTV argued in court yesterday.
Mobile television services are not covered by the Broadcasting Ordinance, HKTV argued in court yesterday.
Ricky Wong Wai-kay's company was opening its case to quash a ruling by the Office of the Communications Authority that required it to get a licence under the ordinance before launching its mobile service using the Digital Terrestrial Multimedia Broadcast transmission standard.
Russell Coleman SC, for HKTV, said that when the ordinance was enacted, it covered only "people watching television at static sites", including domestic households and hotel rooms. The ordinance came into force in 2000.
"[The ordinance has] an assumption that there would be sufficient people in that number of specific premises as would constitute an audience sufficiently large enough that the service they are watching would justify or require regulation," Coleman said.
The court heard that what was in dispute in HKTV's case was the mobility of television services rather than the number of potential viewers and the content of its programmes.
Teresa Cheng SC, for the Office of the Communication Authority, said that mobile television services should be covered by the ordinance because people could receive television signals if they subscribed to the services.
Earlier this year, HKTV paid HK$142 million for China Mobile Hong Kong Corporation, which holds a unified carrier licence under the Telecommunications Ordinance, permitting it to broadcast to mobile devices.
The hearing continues before Mr Justice Thomas Au Hing-cheung today.
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