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Amy Nip

The troubled radio station Digital Broadcasting Corporation will go off the air tonight after the failure of a last-ditch deal for a change of ownership.
Regular programming will stop at 5pm, the station's co-founder and host, Albert Cheng King-hon, said on a DBC phone-in programme yesterday. From 5pm to 8pm, hosts of weekend programmes will go on air to bid farewell to listeners.
The decision was made after shareholders failed to reach a deal over the four-month-old station's funding.
It sparked an emotional response from listeners, including a woman who said she wept upon hearing the news.
Chief executive and board member Morris Ho Kwok-fai said an urgent board meeting was called yesterday but the number attending did not to meet the required minimum of 90 per cent.
Ho said board member Joseph Pang Yuk-wing, who also represents station chairman Bill Wong Cho-bau, a Beijing loyalist, told him the two would no longer fund the company.
Ho, together with Cheng and Ronald Arculli, had proposed to buy Wong's stake at a 50 per cent discount or sell theirs under the same terms. But the other camp did not agree on the proposal and made no counter offers.
"I have no choice. I cannot help it," Ho said after apologising to listeners for end to the service.
The station has yet to pay full salaries to all staff members and the chances are dim that they will get the money without help from the Labour Department.
Ho said a total of HK$3.8 million had been spent on the station's annual licence fee and some shareholders, including David Li Kwok-po and Arthur Li Kwok-cheung, had yet to pay their share in full,
Cheng said the government had a role to play in monitoring the use of the airwaves and should serve as a mediator among shareholders.
DBC had promised the government it would make an investment of HK$600 million, Cheng said. "When it stops airing, the Communications Authority should seek an explanation. It has the power to take away the licence, but it should launch an investigation before that," he said.
It will be the seventh time Cheng has left the post of radio host. These include in 1998, when he was severely injured in an attack, and in 2002, when Commercial Radio was negotiating the renewal of its licence with the government.
A male caller, responding to the news, said he was a follower of Cheng and had bought a digital radio on the second day of DBC's operation.
Another listener said a heated debate was running on internet forums.
"Today it's DBC. Will newspapers or other media face the same fate," he asked, adding that there was now less room for the public to express their opinion.
The prospects for DBC have been grim since Wong allegedly went back on an agreement to pump an additional HK$50 million into the company, for what Cheng called political reasons.
After their relationship turned sour, Wong sought a court injunction against Cheng, stopping him from revealing confidential information from board meetings. The injunction is still valid.
The Office of the Communications Authority said it had not received a formal notification from DBC that it would stop broadcasting.
According to its licensing terms, DBC was to have provided round-the-clock programming on seven channels in the first year of its launch.


Urgent meeting fails to save Digital Broadcasting Corporation

DBC co-founder Albert Cheng King-hon, who is leaving his seventh job as a radio station host. Photo: Sam Tsang

News

Hong Kong

Shareholders unable to agree on rescue plan for digital radio station


Urgent meeting fails to save Digital Broadcasting Corporation

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Shareholders unable to agree on rescue plan for digital radio station

Shareholders unable to agree on rescue plan for digital radio station