ATV staff fire a parting shot over botched farewell
Watchdog accused of blocking station’s plan for a last message one minute before plug was pulled
ATV went off air not with a bang but a whimper – and earned a rebuke after staff accused the broadcasting watchdog of spoiling its farewell message.
On Friday, staff said the station planned to broadcast a “farewell card” at 11.59pm – one minute before the station pulled the plug as its free-to-air licence expired.
But it did not happen. When the time came, the broadcaster was airing a re-run of one of its trademark Miss Asia pageants.
The signal abruptly went blank at midnight. After a brief snowy screen, public broadcaster RTHK took over with its 31A and 33A analogue channels. At the same time, ATV’s digital spectrum was taken over by new licensee ViuTV.
Cherraine Ng, an ATV journalist, wrote on Facebook that the broadcasting watchdog did not allow the “farewell card” to go on the screen after 11pm because it was a “sensitive” matter.
She said that the card was in fact broadcast before 11pm but that ATV had come under strict supervision from the watchdog after 11pm. “There are many limitations working in a television station,” she said.
The card merely said ATV would survive through satellite and internet transmissions.
In a strongly worded statement, the Communications Authority branded the accusations as “creative to the infinity” and “rich in imagination”.
“About the groundless speculations and accusations made against the Communications Authority, we feel deeply strange and regretful,” the statement said.
The watchdog insisted that it had always respected the editorial independence and freedom of creativity of licensees. ATV had the power to decide what it wanted to broadcast and the watchdog was “definitely not involved”.
The watchdog claimed ATV’s engineering department could not resolve technical problems and so the station decided not to broadcast the farewell card before the stroke of midnight.
Social media was flooded with messages mocking ATV for “cheating” people even when it was finally shut down.
“I was sure that ATV had its highest rating in a decade in the last five minutes of its life,” one wrote on the HKGolden forum.
Beccon Lau Pui-chun, chief librarian in the news department, was disappointed at the way ATV went off air. “There should have been a proper ending,” he said.
