Hong Kong broadcasting watchdog defends decision on broadcasting spectrums
Communications Authority chairman defends approach as body faces possible legal challenge
Using an administrative approach to assign broadcasting spectrums is fair, the Communications Authority said yesterday as the regulator faced a possible legal challenge to its decision not to auction off this scarce public resource.
"If somebody really has got a licence … if they failed in an auction to bid for the spectrum, they would not be able to roll out their service," said Ambrose Ho Pui-him, the authority's chairman.
Ho was defending the assignment of some spectrums to be withdrawn from troubled broadcaster ATV to PCCW's HK Television Entertainment Company, which has been awarded a free-to-air television licence.
His remarks came after Cheung Chau resident Kwok Cheuk-kin applied for a judicial review over this arrangement.
Kwok filed the application to the High Court as he found the commissioner's decision was in breach of the common law and Competition Ordinance.
"We have, under the legislation, a duty to ensure an efficient use of spectrums," Ho said.
Asked whether Fantastic TV, whose application for a free-to-air licence has been approved by the government in principle, could also obtain some broadcasting frequencies to be vacated by ATV, Ho said that decision lay with the Executive Council, the city's highest governing body.
Fantastic TV needed to submit further information relating to its restructuring, Ho added.
He ruled out the assignment of more spectrums to the dominant terrestrial station TVB, which currently owns two sets of analogue television channels and 1.5 digital multiplexes.
Ho said the regulator would commission research to examine Hong Kong's free-to-air television market, seeking to understand what benefits additional stations would bring to the city. But he stressed that there was no upper limit to the number of new licences.
The Communications Authority, which also regulates telecommunication services, noted phone scams involving fraudsters posing as mainland law enforcement officials were on the rise.
Ho said the watchdog had been in talks with the city's telecom operators over a plan to tackle the crime by adding a feature to mobile phones' caller display function to help Hongkongers identify calls made from overseas.