City Beat | Time for Hong Kong to make its broadcast policy a higher priority
Addressing the struggles of the industry could create more social harmony in city
About 10 minutes – that was all it took to decide the fate of one of Hong Kong’s key pay TV stations and more than 2,000 staff caught up in its struggle for survival.
That kind of speed can hardly be expected of government policymaking. Understandably there are always reasons for prudence, but the approach does not necessarily have to be passive. Unfortunately, this seems to be the case in Hong Kong’s broadcast policy.
A thorough review of the city’s broadcasting regulations has never been a government priority all these years, as there have always been more urgent political fires to fight. However, on the other hand, the obsession with opening up the market to more competition has driven the government into the political correctness of continuing to issue new licences, especially in promoting digital broadcasting. And now we have a problem.
One big question: are there enough quality products for the public? When it is so easy to blame the proliferation of online platforms for the continuous decline of TV and radio ratings, there is a practical matter to contemplate here. That is, with a limited market and talent pool, do more licences guarantee more and better locally produced programmes that require further investment, or quite the opposite?