Asia Television Ltd
Current ATV Logo(adopted from Asia TV Limited 1990)
Asia Television Limited (ATV) (亞洲電視廣播有限公司) is the first television station in Hong Kong, established on May 29, 1957. It was at first named as Rediffusion Television and renamed as Asia Television Limited in 1982.
ATV has been one of the two free-to-air broadcasters in Hong Kong. It operates two channels, one is a 24-hour HOME channel, which is in Cantonese. Another is a 22-hour WORLD channel, which is in English. Throughout the years, ATV has been "serving the interest of the local community". The channels are accessable in North America via satellite. In 2002, ATV also gained approval from the State Administration for Radio, Film and Television to beam its two channels to the Guangdong Pearl River Delta region.
ATV has also established a close relationship with Guangdong TV station to ensure their stable cooperation in programme productions, advertising and sales.
Numerous awards are awarded to ATV for its programmes. One of their success is the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (百 萬 富 翁), which is a game show founded in UK since 1998. In 2001, ATV bought its production right in Hong Kong. Since then, the popularity of ATV has increased in Hong Kong. This also had prompted the other local TV station - TVB - to respond by producing similar kind of game shows for competition.
The former name of ATV was Lai-dik broadcast limited (Rediffusion Hong Kong Limited/ Rediffusion)麗的電視台 when it began broadcasting on 6 April, 1958. In 1973, ATV was offered the wireless television licence which ended its' fifteen-year cable service.Later, it was renamed as Rediffusion Television Limited or RTV.
In 1981, the British Lai-dik company sold 61% of his share to an Australian consortium. In July 1982, a Chinese Enterprise called Yuen-dung Company 遠東機構, owned by Chiu family, bought part of the share. At that time, Yuen-dung Company and the Australian consortium each occupied 50% of Lai-dik share. This is the first time that a Chinese Enterprise played a role in Lai-dik broadcast limited. It was not till 1982/9/24 that Lai-dik broadcast limited was renamed as 'Asia Television Limited\'(ATV)
(亞洲電視廣播有限公司)due to the fact that Lai-dik company did not own any share of ATV afterwards.
However, this did not put an end to the change in the partnership of ATV. The company which operated ATV often suffered from deficit. Therefore, in Jan 1984, the withdrawal of the Australian Enterprise affirmed the Chiu Family to buy the entire share.
In Aug 1987, the share of ATV was gone on sale. One year after, Asia Television Limited, the Lam’s family (with the led of Lim Por Yen林 百 欣) and the New World Group bought ATV’s share. Each one occupied one-third of the share. At that time, the members of Board Of Directors included Yau Dak-kan((邱德根), Lim Por Yen (林 百 欣),Chen Yue-tung (鄭裕彤).
In 30/1/1989, Chiu Family sold his ATV share to New World Group and Lai-sun Enterprise (麗新集團) with the price of HK $237.5 millions. Afterwards, New World Group held 50% while Lam’s family owned 33.33% and Lai-sunEnterprise held 16.67%.At the same time, Sociedade de Turismo e Diversoes de Macau (STDM) joined as minority shareholder.As announced by the Board of Directors, the Chairman was Chen Yue-tung, the Vice-Chairman was Lim Por Yen. The Administrative Director was Miss Selina Chow (周梁淑儀)
As World is changing, the Board of Director has a new face from the year 2002 onwards. (For the details, please refer to the “Partnership" part)
ATV provides different types of television programmes, including news, infotainment, drama and various shows.
ATV not only produces TV programmes but also introduces popular overseas TV programmes to cater for audiences with different tastes and preferences. Recently, ATV has also bought some famous TV drama programmes from South Korea and the Mainland China and they are broadcasted mainly in prime time. These overseas TV dramas have been prevailing in Hong Kong.
In 20/1/1989, ATV announced a change in the channel name. For the Cantonese channel, the name was changed from Golden Channel(黃金台)to ATV Home Channel (亞視本港台). On the contrary, the name was changed from Diamond Channel (鑽石台)to ATV World Channel (亞視國際台)for the English Channel. At Feburary of the same year, ATV’s Logo was the intersection of three lines: red, blue and green which forms like a circle.
ATV has produced numerous classical TV dramas which include Crocodile Tears(鱷 魚 淚), Fatherland(大 地 恩 情 ), The Legendary Fok(霍 元 甲), Reincarnation(天 蠶 變).Recent famous productions are The Pride Of Chao Zhou(我 來 自 潮 州),Who is the Winner?(勝 者 為 王),King Of The Gambler(千 王 之 王 重 出 江 湖 ),A Better Tomorrow(再 見 艷 陽 天).
In recent years, ATV has initiated and hosted certain large-scale prize distribution ceremonies. The most well-known one would probably be The Annual Most Popular TV Commercial Awards(十 大 電 視 廣 告 頒 獎 禮 ).
Other infotainment programmes like Stories From Afar(尋 找 他 鄉 的 故 事) ranked up Appreciation Index Survey Best Television Awards(香 港 電 視 節 目 欣 賞 指數)as reflected by public review.
There are some programmes which were recorded with high ratings, such as the entertainment news 今日睇真D and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire 百 萬 富 翁. This kind of entertainment news report and game shows widely attracts many audiences and successfully leads the trend, in which another local TV station TVB had started to follow.
ATV World is one of the English channel in Hong Kong. It offers a variety of programmes, mostly from foreign countries, ranged from popular serial dramas and films to educational shows. For instance the American production Ally McBeal (甜心俏佳人), Smallville and CSI: Crime Scene Inventigation, as well as the talk show, Late Show with David Letterman are familiar to local audiences. Programmes about art and sport are also provided, such as Great Artists and the NBA Game of the Week. Putonghua programmes are also available on ATV World at off-peak hours.
ATV News has a wide and close connection with China and oversea media broadcasters. Additional foreign coverage of news is provided by CNN. ATV receives CNN transmission 24 hours a day via satellite from CNN's home base in Atlanta, USA. By way of setting more than 10 news bureaus overseas, global breaking news can be accessed immediately via satellite and internet.
In order to make news more accessible, it has established a electronic news site which is a link insides the company's website (see 'External Link'). It provides daily and past local and international news.
Besides producing daily news report, ATV is now offering 8 news programmes, 6 in Cantonese and 2 in English. News programmes in Cantonese are namely "Monetary Word" (金錢世界), "Chasing current affairs" (時事追擊), "Decoding current affairs" (時事解碼), "Following ad hoc news" (時事熱點追蹤), "Investment strategy" (窩輪有法) and "Mr. Tsang' show" (曾sir28騷) while the rest two English news programmes are "Newsline" and "Inside Story".
Furthermore, ATV's NEW MAGAZINE is the recent affairs production that has gained awards from the New York Festivals, the Chicago International Television Competition and the Asian Television Awards.
Apart from the television screen, we can also catch-up with ATV programmes on its website. The website, which is accompanyed by 3 text versions, namely Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese and English, is user-friendly that we can browse lots of information in it by just simply clicking the icons on it. Those information includes the introduction of its company, schdules of TV programmes, promotion of up-coming events and review of some TV programmes etc.
From the very early beginning, ATV experienced a 5-time changes in the shareholder. Most of them end in deficit. On the June of 2002, businessman Chan Wing-kei (陳永祺)with chairman of Phoenix Satellite Television Holdings Limited (凰鳳衛視)Liu Changle(劉長樂)established a company which later bought most of ATV's share. Then, Chan Wing-kei took the post of Administrative Director General. With the change of shareholder, there is also innovation in terms of the direction in production, marketing strategy and human resource. One of the significant changes is the increasing purchase of foreign programmes such as the South Korean Drama Blue Love(藍色生死戀).
New Board of Directors of Asia Television Limited
^Not of permanent residence status
(adopted from ATV homepage)
ATV was permitted to renew its' licence to broadcast for 12 years. Under the terms of licence renewals, the Broadcasting Authority requires the ATV world to have bilingual subtitles on news, weather and current affairs shows, educational shows and emergency announcements starting from December 2004. More cultural and arts shows are also demanded.
See also:
The establishment of ATV
Rediffusion TV Logo
Programmes
Brief history on the name of Home Channel and World Channel
Programmes from Home Channel
Programmes from World Channel
ATV News
ATV Training Institute
ATV Training Institute
ATV Website
Partnership
=New Directors to be appointedLicence
Company Address
81 Broadcast Dr., Kowloon Tong Hong Kong.Major Competitor
TVB (無視電視廣播有限公司）, is the major competitor of ATV since the establishment of ATV. TVB is the first wireless commercial television station in Hong Kong. It was first established in 1967. The Group has now grown to a size of about 5,000 including contract artistes and staff in overseas subsidiary companies. The viewership of TVB is usually much higher than that of ATV. That is to say, TVB takes advantage over ATV.External Links
