TV licence rebuff raises questions of political bias

Compared to the infamous barrage of slaps delivered by a Hong Kong girl to her kneeling and snivelling boyfriend, the slap administered by the government to Hong Kong Television Network (HKTV) is louder and more hurtful. Even to idle bystanders, this is a dark day for Hong Kong, another nail in the coffin of our supposedly free economy.

It is ironic that Ricky Wong Wai-kay, founder of HKTV (formerly City Telecom), was the first to be invited by the government to submit an application for a TV licence and the first to take the offer seriously, practically throwing the kitchen sink into the new venture, selling his telecom assets to fund it, and burning through more than HK$300 million over nearly four years.

The feckless secretary for commerce and economic development, Greg So Kam-leung, said with a straight face that there were no political considerations in rejecting Wong's application. Everybody else smells a rat. Anybody can see this is a decision for maintaining the status quo - the other two licences having gone to the two existing pay-TV companies, i-Cable TV and PCCW. How can one call this decision good for competition?

Wong is probably Hong Kong's last "hero from zero", given how in recent years landlords and developers have picked our pockets clean and killed off any chance of the poor climbing out of intergenerational poverty.

He is a maverick. But that doesn't make him a dangerous political animal. He made his fortune in the market and knows the rules of the game. Wong's problem may be his loose tongue, but his bark is worse than his bite.

One thing beyond dispute is that Wong has been good for the Hong Kong economy. He helped to dismantle the monopoly of PCCW-HKT and opened up the telecommunications industry, bringing down prices for consumers. Wong looked set to do the same for the TV industry.