No laughing matter as comedians drive Hong Kong TVB’s effort to get creative, grow dwindling audiences
- TV station banks on Eric Tsang and Wong Cho-lam to get creative, expand into mainland
- Critics say TVB has lost connection with Hongkongers, must do more to win over local viewers
When Hong Kong’s biggest free television station, TVB, announced last week that it was appointing comedians Eric Tsang and Wong Cho-lam as senior executives, observers were left wondering how the pair might turn around the broadcaster’s flagging fortunes.
The news came amid concerns about the future of the city’s struggling TV industry as a whole, given sharp declines in viewers and advertising revenue, as younger people migrate increasingly to global streaming services such as Netflix and Disney and other online media channels such as YouTube.
Once a force in the industry, churning out TV classics such as The Bund, Police Cadet, The Greed of Man, All the Threshold of an Era, and War and Beauty, TVB has lost much of its former cultural influence.
Critics and stakeholders see an urgent need for the station to reinvent itself, or risk fading out of sight.
“TVB should think long and hard about how to reform itself to reconnect with or appeal to Hong Kong people,” said Grace Leung Lai-kuen, a lecturer at Chinese University’s school of journalism and communication.
“What do they want to watch and what do they care about? TVB needs to be sincere in addressing the needs of Hong Kong viewers or it will become irrelevant in Hong Kong.”
