ATV makes a song and dance about licences
Private guards block lawmakers from Tamar while major investor rails against new operators
ATV rallied its staff outside the Admiralty government headquarters yesterday for a live broadcast to oppose a “disastrous” pledge by the former administration to issue new licences for free television broadcasting.
ATV staff were reportedly forced to join the protest, for which the station deployed its own security guards to keep order at the government offices.
The private guards barred legislators and teenage counter-protesters – who supported more free-TV licences – from entry to what they called a “private event”.
Pan-democratic lawmakers tried to walk into the crowd. But as Claudia Mo Man-ching, of the Civic Party, approached key ATV investor Wong Ching – a mainland tycoon also known as Wang Zheng – a dozen Mr Asia contestants formed a human wall in front of him.
Mo asked if ATV had breached broadcasting rules by broadcasting the protest, which was “purely based on political messages”.
Asia Club, an ATV subsidiary that organised the rally, put the number of participants at 400, about the same estimate as given by police.