These days, Hui has no patience for any of the station's offerings.

"ATV, please fold," she implores.

In less than five years since mainland businessman Wong Ching became ATV's "major investor", a string of woes - from protracted shareholder disputes and poor management to lacklustre programming and financial debacles - has dragged the station down. Once a trendsetter in programming, it is now the city's running television joke, scoff industry experts.

It is also a political liability for the government. ATV's free TV licence expires in November, and it has little value to the government as its low ratings mean a diminished ability to shape public opinion.

The Communications Authority has refused to recommend a renewal, but the Chief Executive in Council has yet to settle its fate. After the public outcry against the council's much-criticised decision to reject the bid for a similar licence by Ricky Wong Wai-kay's HKTV in 2013, any "wrong" decision could prompt angry citizens to take to the streets again.

Debt-laden with no white knight in sight to rescue the station and facing Labour Department prosecution for failing to pay its staff, ATV is reaching "the moment of life and death", says executive director Ip Ka-po. "I do not want ATV to collapse," says the ATV veteran.

The ATV of today is a pale shadow of its glory days, say insiders who are preparing their eulogies.

Television industry veteran Robert Chua remembers a time when ATV - formerly known as Rediffusion Television - was professionally run.

In 1957, British broadcaster Rediffusion was granted a licence to operate a pay-TV service in Hong Kong. From its Kowloon Tong headquarters, it became the world's first Chinese-language television broadcaster. Apart from news and entertainment, Rediffusion also led the trend in importing Japanese anime shows, including Osamu Tezuka's in 1966.

Its monopoly ended when Television Broadcasts was set up in 1967 as the first free-to-air television station. As a pay-TV service reaching 100,000 households and charging HK$25 per month - equivalent to the then monthly salary of a police officer - Rediffusion soon lost audience share to the free TVB, whose live variety show , developed by Chua, struck a heavy blow to Rediffusion.

Despite multiple makeovers, it could not beat TVB. Rediffusion did not become a free-to-air broadcaster until 1973. By then, it was too late to recapture audience share and it slipped further with the arrival of Commercial Television (CTV) in 1975, ending up last among the three free TV stations.

When Commercial Television suddenly shut down in 1978, Rediffusion found more room to manoeuvre. The rise of young creative talents at Rediffusion, such as Johnny Mak Tong-hung and Stephen Shiu Yeuk-yuen - who both went on to become star filmmakers - boosted its fortunes.

The hits of the late 1970s and early 1980s created by these talents included the long-running modern drama (1978), martial arts series (1979) and (1980), which tells the tales of farmers in modern Chinese history.

trumped TVB's ratings, capturing 60 per cent of viewership at the time, prompting TVB to revamp its line-up.

Rediffusion was renamed ATV in 1982 when Deacon Chiu Te-ken , founder of Far East Holdings, took over.

Known for his tight fiscal discipline, ATV under Chiu was a profitable outfit, with a slew of new shows including the Miss Asia beauty pageant.

In 1988, a year after a fire burned down the station's headquarters, Lai Sun Group founder Lim Por-yen took over ATV in another reshuffle.

ATV was a trendsetter under Lim. He brought in former executive and legislative councillor Selina Chow, formerly with TVB and CTV, as general manger. She went on to poach many talents from TVB, including comedy stars Lydia "Fei Fei" Shum and Eric Tsang Chi-wai.

Scriptwriter Alex Pao Wai-chung was among talents who left TVB in 1990 for ATV. "ATV invested heavily in producing shows catering to the Hong Kong audience," recalls Pao.

From in which hosts lyric master James Wong Jim , filmmaker Chua Lam and author Ni Kuang talked about love and sex while puffing on cigarettes, to infotainment show forerunner , ATV was a trailblazer in creating new shows. TVB copied the format of in a bid to win back viewers.

Current affairs talk show became a career launch pad for Wong Yuk-man and Albert Cheng King-hon, who went on to become celebrity show hosts and later legislators. was created during this golden era.

ATV also imported popular mainland-Taiwan series and Taiwanese production

"But it wasn't enough to beat TVB," says Pao. ATV could only achieve an average of 30 to 40 per cent viewership. Chow was removed and the station went into cost-cutting mode.

Chua says although ATV was a trendsetter then, management did not have the stomach to wait for the long-term investments in new programmes to pay off in the form of a bigger audience base.

ATV began to lose its charm in the late 1990s - about the time when "red capital" was being showered on the station. Feng Xiaoping, a mainland property developer said to have little experience in television, helmed ATV in 1998 after he became its largest shareholder.

ATV scored big when it imported game show , which achieved a record 39 rating points with more than a million viewers, forcing TVB to acquire the BBC's . But the ATV show was a one-hit wonder.

Pao says the "red capital" created a bad image for ATV. "It seems that the TV station became a PR tool to entertain the owners' mainland business networks," said Pao.

Repeated changes in ownership also affected programming. Former ATV actor Leung Sze-ho recalled recently that programmes earning rave reviews could not be renewed because of squabbling within top management. Frankie Choi Kwok-wai, a 19-year veteran of ATV, told the the lack of sponsors had also worsened matters.

The station's ownership became more complicated from the mid-2000s. The Cha brothers - Payson Cha Mou-sing and Johnson Cha Mou-daid - and financier Alnery, co-owned by the Chas, former TVB top man Louis Page and Dutch bank ABN Amro, became new shareholders in 2007, in addition to China Light Group and Dragon Viceroy.

In 2009, Taiwanese snack tycoon Tsai Eng-meng acquired a stake and formed Antenna with the Chas.

For a while, it looked like things could get better. Dubbed Taiwan's Rupert Murdoch in the Western media, Tsai, who also owns the China Times Group, roped in his associates to revamp ATV.

But the Chas brought mainland businessman Wong Ching into the picture as a way to offload their stake. In 2010, Wong's relative Wong Ben-koon, chairman of Prosperity International Holdings, acquired a 51 per cent stake from the Chas, Dragon Viceroy and China Light and became the station's major shareholder.

Meanwhile, Antenna, still co-owned by the Chas and Tsai, was sidelined. "We have been shunned," said a source close to Tsai. "We had no access to the books and had no clue of what was going on at ATV."

It was later revealed in a Communications Authority investigation that Wong Ching had become the de facto boss of ATV despite not being an owner. He had been hired as a "consultant" and vowed to turn ATV into "Asia's answer to CNN".

Tsai filed lawsuits against ATV, Wong and other shareholders over allegations of poor management and urged the courts to appoint an independent supervisor for the station.

In other court action, the Chas applied to wind up ATV after it failed to repay a HK$200 million loan plus HK$91 million in interest. In July, ATV paid off the loan but it turned out that Wong borrowed HK$290 million from a British Virgin Islands company named Treasure Ridge to settle the matter.

Critics say ATV gears its programmes towards the mainland audience and accuse Wong of interfering with the news teams, a charge he denies.

But a Communications Authority investigation report in 2013 found that Wong, though not a member of ATV's board of directors, did interfere in the station's operations through former chief James Shing Pan-yu. ATV was fined a record HK$1 million and Shing was forced out.

"All these hurt ATV's credibility as a broadcaster," said Pao. "Its programmes cater to a mainland audience rather than Hongkongers. If ATV has given up on Hong Kong, why should the people of Hong Kong support the station?"

In December, a court ruled in favour of Tsai, ordering Wong Ben-koon to sell a 10.75 per cent stake to an independent investor and appointing accounting firm Deloitte to examine the station's books and find a white knight to rescue ATV.

But no deals have been announced and ATV still owes its staff half of their November wages and their full December salaries.

Now cash-strapped and with staff leaving, all Ip can do is sell ATV assets and call for shareholders to pay outstanding salaries. But no one is heeding his calls. The Labour Department has issued 34 summonses over delayed salary payments from July to September.

Anthony Fung Ying-him, director of Chinese University's school of journalism and communication, accuses the media watchdog of not taking responsibility for monitoring ATV's production and financial standards.

"This is outrageous. Why should we tolerate ATV?" Fung asks.