Death of Asia Television a showcase of meddling and politics, irresponsible shareholders
The Hong Kong government lagged behind international developments and insisted on maintaining a very limited monopoly ... in order to exercise some kind of political control over who was to be given television licenses
In many ways, the lingering death of Asia Television (ATV) is a perfect storm melding the worst aspects of government intervention in business, the perils of politics getting mixed up with commerce, the irresponsible actions of shareholders and, lamentably, showing how hard working employees are short changed and consumers let down.
To disentangle this mess let’s start at the top. In the bad old days licenses to provide free-to-air television were invitations to print money. Old technology put governments in a position to select a very small clutch of companies to run television services and to impose conditions that regulated the way they worked.
In most developed nations, these licenses have become increasingly redundant with the emergence of new media yet there is still space for traditional broadcasters who use newer technology offering increased space on the airwaves. This has led to a proliferation of television stations no longer constrained by limited bandwidth.
As ever the Hong Kong government lagged behind international developments and insisted on maintaining a very limited monopoly, no longer for technical reasons but, it is widely believed, in order to exercise some kind of political control over who was to be given television licenses.
The previous duopoly enjoyed by TVB and ATV gave way to the licensing of two other entrants (PCCW and i-Cable) who, after more than a year, have yet to provide a service, while denying a license to HKTV, which is already on the air via the Internet.
In theory, this should have given ATV an opportunity to maintain its position as a viable competitor to TVB. Instead of focusing on the quality of its output ATV’s major shareholders engaged in court room battles for control, got busy with share trading and generally paid greater attention to their own interests rather than those of a station increasingly starved of resources and haemorrhaging talent at an impressive pace.
However the bosses of ATV did pay attention to the political side of things, making sure that they were cozying up to Beijing and keeping the Hong Kong government onside.