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SCMP Reporter

The television industry is planning legal action against sellers of illegal television signal decoders as sales rocket during the World Cup.

The regional broadcasting industry body, the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia, is acting on behalf of Star TV, AOL Time Warner, Hong Kong Cable TV and other international networks.

It is understood the plan to take civil action came after members became frustrated over the Government's failure to launch criminal cases.

The association says it will start collecting evidence against illegal sellers of the 'black boxes' next week.

The decoders allow viewers to watch pirated signals of Cable TV - which has exclusive Hong Kong rights to the World Cup.

The games can also be seen on non-SAR satellite channels.

The association will then present the evidence to the courts and ask for orders for the traders to stop.

In the SAR, it is criminal to import, export, manufacture, sell or rent decoders to receive pay TV services without a licence.

However, only one case has been successfully prosecuted, according to a spokesman for the Information Technology and Broadcasting Bureau.

The association has been planning the campaign for several months and has hired private investigators to secure preliminary evidence, such as photographs and video footage of illegal traders at work.

Association chief executive Simon Twiston Davies said: 'We have seen very limited government activity in tackling the problems.

'But the issue has become so serious with the onset of the World Cup soccer tournament that we feel we must act now.'

He estimated there were 100 illegal traders in Hong Kong, selling about 300 black boxes a day during the World Cup.

'We believe there are about 100,000 unauthorised set-top boxes hooked up to Cable TV's platform and 12,000 illegal decoders receiving satellite TV signals,' he said.

Industry experts said each pirated international channel was losing more than US$670,000 (HK$5.2 million) a year on illegal viewers.

Cable TV president and chief executive Stephen Ng Tin-hoi said yesterday the operator hoped its exclusive rights to the World Cup would drive up subscribers to 600,000, or 30 per cent of all TV households, by the end of this month. At the end of last month, the network had 570,000 subscribers.

Mr Ng said although some subscribers might opt out after the soccer, he hoped to increase Cable TV's penetration rate to 40 per cent within the next five years.



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