Asia Television, the city's smaller television broadcaster, may need two more years to break even despite recording double-digit growth in revenue last year after changing owners last April, chief operating officer Ho Ting-kwan said yesterday.
The loss-making broadcaster said its advertising revenue achieved the first rebound last year. However, the company has yet to break even and may need two more years to make its first profit.
'Although our advertising revenue stopped declining last year, we also had more capital expenditure to meet the growing number of channels we offer in Hong Kong,' Mr Ho said, referring to the addition of two digital channels.
Staff also rose to more than 1,000 from 900 last year.
Mr Ho said the new shareholders, the Cha family's Mingly Corp and the Netherlands-based ABN Amro, still wanted to take the broadcaster public. However, it needed to 'improve [its] profit-and-loss account before talking about public listing'.
'Our advertiser base has improved a lot,' Mr Ho said. Among the new advertisers are Deutsche Bank, ABN Amro and other global brands.