Blog Asian Artists

Oct 30th 2013, 08:06, by Admin

The government not granting HKTV their free-to-air TV license has stirred up a disturbance. Netizens started a "No TV" movement that will begin on the night of October 30th from 7-11pm. Netizens urged HK citizens to support HKTV by participating in this movement. TVB Chairman Norman Leung was asked about this issue yesterday at an event, he expressed he read it on the newspaper. Hong Kong is a city of freedom, each individual has the right to express themselves and he will respect their decision. Is he worried the issue might get bigger and bigger? He said: "No, the government is handling it. I cannot speak for the government, but to me the free-to-air TV licenses went from 2 to 4, its already 100% and poses a great challenge. Also, the other two TV stations are large financial groups. (How is TVB going to compete?) Try to do our best."

Norman stressed he too hopes the government could give us all a clear explanation on the "rules of the game". He said: "The government granted us (TVB) this license for 10 years, we spent HK$1 billion on the basic structure, then another HK$6 billion and another HK$6 billion on program productions. In other words, the government is granting more licenses, then how can operators do business? Other operators face this problem as well. (Do you think the government will safeguard the interest of the licensed TV stations?) They have to clearly state the rules of the game before we can have any planning. There is a cost to everything. Earlier we invested HK$1 billion on HD installation and this was what the government wanted us to do. (You hope the government sets the rules?) At lease let us know, so we can do business. They have to let us know how many are in the game and also understand our challenges. Now that iCable and nowTV have their licenses, its been disperse and we don't know when there will be even more licenses granted unless I don't have to promise how much money to use for investments."

Source: Mingpao
Translated by: aZnangel @ AsianEU Forum