Politics at play in DBC Radio's demise, and it's bad news for press freedom

Since the official launch of DBC Radio in May, the station's development had been progressing in accordance with the investment plan that had been approved by all shareholders and submitted in the licence application. A total of HK$150million has been invested so far and the shareholders had agreed to inject a further HK$50million to cover operational costs.

Last week, a group of shareholders led by Wong Cho-bau, who owns 20per cent of DBC shares, broke that commitment to inject money and even queried the operation of the station. The shareholders included banker David Li Kwok-po, his brother and executive councillor Arthur Li Kwok-cheung and chairman of VTech Holdings, Allan Wong Chi-yun. They each own 10per cent of the shares.

Instead, the group requested that management liquidate the station and dismiss all staff. They have effectively reneged on their investment promise and shirked their responsibilities. Their collective decision goes against their pledge to develop digital audio broadcasting.

If these shareholders are reluctant to continue to invest in the station from a business point of view, or due to disagreements with management over operations, there are a few options they could take.

First, they could sell their shares to investors willing to take the risk or find ways to attract new investors. Second, they could acquire more shares to have a bigger say, in order to remove the existing management, whom they claim has been operating unsatisfactorily. Third, they could retain their shares but allow other more willing investors to inject more money so that the overall investment base would be enlarged, and thus their individual shares and potential risk would become smaller.

Unfortunately, they have not taken any of these actions. What's more baffling is they have rejected our proposal to inject more cash ourselves. They have insisted on one action only - to liquidate DBC, close down the station and give up the hard-earned digital broadcasting licence.

On the surface, these investors are saying that closing down DBC Radio is a business decision, but are they carrying out an order from the central government's liaison office, to suppress the opposition voice and gag those who refuse to toe the line?