After HKTV decision, anger grows among viewers over poor TVB fare

Tens of thousands of protesters joined in a week-long rally in October after the government granted two free-to-air TV licenses, overlooking a third bidder. The decision, some protesters said, represented a form of broadcast hegemony.

Online, disgruntled viewers started a Facebook campaign urging the public to boycott TVB's 46th anniversary live gala show, hoping to further dent the station's ratings. Outside TVB's headquarters, hundreds of protesters tossed Chinese "hell money" at the gate, as they marked "the death of television".

It was a difficult moment for freelance writer Kenny Leung, a lifelong TV fan. "The general quality of TVB dramas has been declining since 2000, but it was in the last two years that I started to find the dramas have turned into eyesores," he says. "Why are the plots so irrational and predictable? Why are the scriptwriters so lazy?"

Leung can easily recite the formula for TVB dramas. "Whenever the protagonist's parents are not initially introduced in the drama, there will be a plot featuring him or her searching for the father or mother," he says. "It's amazingly easy for people to suffer from amnesia!"

What depresses him the most, he says, is not the subpar programming, but the station's reluctance to improve. "Without any intention of changing, the current situation with TVB could last forever," he says.

Sarah Ho, a young solicitor, was also among the crowd outside government headquarters chanting her support for HKTV.