The HK Film Awards chief now accepts it was his organisation's inexperience that led to the show overrunning
The Hong Kong Film Awards Association has accepted the blame for the botched broadcast of its presentation ceremony on Sunday.
Manfred Wong, chairman of the association's board of directors, yesterday backtracked on his previous claim that host broadcaster TVB was responsible for cutting off some acceptance speeches in order to allow commercials to run.
'TVB has no fault in this,' he said, apologising to viewers and the television station.
It emerged that the awards association itself had produced the show for the first time this year, rather than TVB - and Mr Wong said his team's inexperience had showed.
The association's producers had allowed the show to run 13 minutes over the scheduled time, meaning TVB had had no choice but to cut to commercials. 'This lesson tells us that organising a show is not the same as making a film, as there are so many unexpected things on a live television show,' Mr Wong said. 'It's difficult to ask the artists to shut up in the middle of an acceptance speech.'