Don't give ATV's slice of spectrum to RTHK, analysts advise
Public broadcaster won't offer a true alternative after ATV closes, experts say
The government should not have asked RTHK to take over ATV’s analogue spectrum once the troubled television station closes because the businesses of the two operators are different in nature, a panel of analysts said yesterday.
And RTHK doesn’t have the resources to offer viewers of analogue television a real alternative to TVB, the city’s other analogue broadcaster, they said.
The panellists on RTHK’s City Forum show yesterday said the government took an irresponsible step when it opened talks with the public broadcaster to provide an analogue programming channel between April 1 next year – when ATV’s free-to-air licence expires – and 2020, when the city is slated to switch totally to digital TV broadcasting.
“It is an extremely wrong decision to ask RTHK to take over the analogue spectrum,” said Stephen Chan Chi-wan, TVB’s former general manager and now chief adviser to Commercial Radio.
The city launched digital terrestrial broadcasting in late 2007. As of September, about 20 per cent of the population, or 480,000 households, still watched analogue shows.
Grace Leung Lai-kuen, a lecturer at Chinese University’s school of journalism and communication, expressed doubt as to whether RTHK had the resources to launch analogue programming services.
The Civic Party’s Claudia Mo Man-ching, who sits on the Legislative Council’s panel on information technology and broadcasting, noted that RTHK did not even have a transmitter capable of broadcasting an analogue television signal.
RTHK operates three digital terrestrial television channels.
Separately, on a TVB talk show, Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Greg So Kam-leung admitted it would be a challenge for RTHK to broadcast analogue signals. But he said it might consider buying ATV’s analogue facilities.
