ATV Finds New Buyer, May Win Back License
Hong Kong’s cash-strapped station ATV has finally found a buyer. After suffering years of financial difficulty, it was said that the troubled station would be taken off air at the end of year. However, a buyer recently reached out to ATV and purchased all of the stakes held by the station’s majority shareholder David Wong (黃炳均), saving ATV from a much darker fate.
On June 12, ATV held a poon choi banquet in celebration of the station’s 58th year since its founding. At the event, ATV executive director Ip Ka Po (葉家寶) announced that ATV has finally won an agreement with an investment group, and stated that the station has a chance of revival.
Ip Ka Po has declined to disclose the name of the buyer, but he did say that more details of the deal would be revealed in a press conference next week. He thanked the 500 plus ATV employees for their unwavering support in the past year.
It was said that the new boss of ATV promised to push the station to new heights. The new investor, who is from Mainland China, wants ATV to become a multimedia company with multiple platforms and capabilities, and rebuild the station to become Asia’s cultural media group. New staff will be hired. With its license expiring in 10 months, the revamped ATV will also consider applying another license in the future.
In regards to the changes that ATV will be facing, Ip Ka Po said, “I don’t think ATV’s name will change, but there may be a possibility that the logo will change. When the time comes, we will go around the world to enlist designers to work on the new design.”
Source: ihktv
This article is written by Addy for JayneStars.com.
Let’s hope the new buyer isn’t another Wong Ching – otherwise, ATV might as well put that last nail in the coffin now rather than put their staff through more misery. But at least changing into a multi-media company (as this new buyer/investor wants to do) makes way more sense than turning the station into Asia’s version of CNN (Wong Ching’s lousy idea)…though on the flip side, there goes another station that will lose whatever little ‘HK flavor’ it still had (which wasn’t much in the first place). Ah well – let’s see who this buyer ends up being…
ATV needs a drama department to survive and some cast that is actually worth watching … bring back some competition with TVB!
In a way, I am relieved that ATV will keep running due to the dedicated staff and the long history of the company. But if it is bad management all over again, I will cry.
i support them to come back.