ATV staff lay blame for Hong Kong station’s demise with mainland investor Wong Ching
The tycoon said he would transform the station into ‘Asia’s CNN’ when he took over in 2010. The station will go off air on Friday night.
Former staff at ATV have hit out at mainland tycoon and ex-investor Wong Ching, saying his mismanagement led to the death of the beleaguered broadcaster, which will go off air on Friday night.
They also recalled the glory days of the 59-year-old broadcaster under the leadership of the late Hong Kong industrialist Lim Por-yen from 1988 to 1998, when they saw the station as a real competitor to TVB.
The historic network faces the final curtain exactly one second before midnight on Friday, when its free-to-air television licence expires.
Tsang Hin-kwok, a former engineer who worked with ATV for 18 years, said: “Wong’s handling of the station was really bad. It was utterly wrong to drive away all our advertising clients.”
Tsang said Wong, an industry outsider, drastically increased the advertising rate in a bid to cover huge operating costs – but failed to take into account the broadcaster’s market value.
“He also ruined our brand,” Tsang lamented. “I have given so much effort, and it is heartbreaking to see [ATV’s closure]. It is a weak station, but I had hoped it would survive so a great number of people could still make a living on this platform.”
Wong, who vowed to end ATV’s financial woes and transform it into “Asia’s CNN” when he took over in 2010, decided to stop pumping money into the station and claimed he had already fulfilled his “historic mission” in 2014.
Former ATV actress Kiwi Yuen Kit-yee, who played a leading role in the station’s signature drama The Pride of Chaozhou, shared Tsang’s views as she recalled her “happiest days” at the broadcaster under Lim’s leadership in the 1990s.
“We were given a lot of opportunities,” said Yuen, adding Lim was someone who respected and cared about his staff.
“But the bosses afterwards saw their employees at a very low level and [believed] they should be controlled. They would completely ignore the opinions we floated,” she said.
Meanwhile, senior public relations manager Jeff Wong Sau-tung said the fate of the station remained uncertain.
It could be transformed as an online or satellite TV station, he said, but it all depended on how much investors would pour in.
