The drama and the comedy that was Wong Ching and ATV
Wong Ching ran the half-century-old Asia Television into the ground. But the saving grace is that his absurd antics throughout his reign from 2010 over the city's perennial also-ran station have provided us with endless amusement, entertainment and opportunity for ridicule.
Wong Ching ran the half-century-old Asia Television into the ground. But the saving grace is that his absurd antics throughout his reign from 2010 over the city's perennial also-ran station have provided us with endless amusement, entertainment and opportunity for ridicule. True to form, we are witnessing the last days of the station that have been full of drama and comedy. It has certainly been far more entertaining than any programme ATV has come up with in recent years.
It all sounded like an April's fool joke, except it was all too real. The demise of ATV has been the city's one true reality show. But the real question to ask is: why was Wong allowed to run this show for so long? Were all our regulators asleep at the wheel? Nor could the government's Executive Council escape responsibility, though it finally come to its senses this week and pulled the plug on ATV.
A virtual unknown when the mainland businessman took over ATV as its majority shareholder, he soon effectively ran it, both directly and though cronies or relatives he put in executive and board positions.
This was in direct breach of licensing conditions, as they required local ownership and freedom from interference. But this was allowed to go on for years because he was on paper only "a major investor". Supposedly he had no direct role in the running of the station. Yet, that was far from the case, as most people in the industry knew. The Communications Authority finally had to act and fined ATV an unprecedented HK$1 million after concluding that Wong was interfering in the station's management through his cousin, James Shing Pan-yu, whom he made an executive director. As part of the official sanction, Shing was forced out.
Under Wong's influence, ATV made one of the worst journalistic blunders in local journalism when its news service wrongly reported in July 2011 that former president Jiang Zemin had died. In late 2012, he literally led a song-and-dance with ATV artistes outside the government's Tamar headquarters in a protest against the issuing of new television licences that could threaten the station's survival.
Neither Wong nor sadly ATV will be terribly missed in Hong Kong.
