ATV Waits for White Knight in Face of Liquidation
ATV executive Ip Ka Po (葉家寶) is currently in talks with six potential buyers over the sale of stakes in the company, but prospects are looking dim. According to Derek Lai (黎嘉恩), Deloitte’s regional managing partner for southern China, ATV must find a “white knight” to save the station by next week. If not, the troubled broadcaster will have to be liquidated.
However, not all hope is lost. Derek Lai said another solution is for ATV to continue borrowing money in order to buy more time to find investors. He is optimistic for the station and hopes ATV will recover from its beleaguered state. He stated that there are three pressing issues from potential investors to ATV: whether ATV can renew its broadcasting license; the amount of ATV’s debt; and whether ATV shareholders are willing to negotiate for the selling of ATV’s stock to buyers.
UNESCO: ATV Should Be Protected
Ip Ka Po, who recently held a meeting with UNESCO Hong Kong Association, revealed that UNESCO has agreed to help the ailing station. The two parties are currently working on several collaboration possibilites, which can hopefully save the station from its collapse.
UNESCO stated that ATV is Hong Kong’s first Cantonese public broadcaster and has been running for 58 years. It is a part of Hong Kong’s culture and heritage, and deserves to be protected.
Ip Ka Po praised the staff that chose to remain at ATV, expressing that they are protecting their historical and cultural heritage in a professional manner.
Source: ihktv.com
This article is written by Addy for JayneStars.com.
Good luck, ATV!
yeh good luck too,but im afraid that no white knight will appear to save atv,which millionaire wants to risks millions to invest in a company like atv?
A millionaire who wants a bit of PR and be seen to save ordinary workers jobs!
TVB has done it with purchasing their archive films? whether it was a genuine gesture or not, it was a transaction, that helped a little.
UNESCO is correct in thinking ATV holds an important plant in terms of HK’s culture and history. However, all the points that once made ATV great has all since disappeared due to the bad management. If UNESCO wants to keep ATV, then they better do something about management and the puppet strings held by Beijing.
ATV has been irrelevant for years. please shut this down. Their antics in the past little while have been embarrassing
Please do not say that because ATV is not the worse station around. If you think their antics are embarrassing then what about TVB? They are slave drivers,pay very little,are petty, cheap and sadly have been really going downhill in their productions for many years now and many other pathetic things. Why don’t they shut down? I think Tvb is just still luck and/ or has the connections.
I feel bad for ATV because back in the days, they had many talented artists, had great staff, made great and high quality productions, and so many good things that Tvb had not had for a very very long time. But sadly due to bad management,it has ended up like this. I truly hope that things can be done to save ATV. A big and important part of the hk culture and film industry will be gone if ATV does shut down. I will be so sad along with many others who watched ATV growing up just like I did.
but the atv now isnt the atv of the past anymore,only a few ppl from the iceage of atv are still there,the company is actually a empty shell they only producing news and repeatedly broadcasting their drama’s from the iceage,the latest owners and managers of atv are the one who let it come to this far,so im not pity that atv will fall,i only pity the employees who will lost their jobs,especially the the employees who have served the company from the beginning of the time,they are the one with most pain in their heart.
If UNESCO thinks ATV is worth saving as a cultural heritage they sould bring back the original name, 麗的電視有限公司.
The only way to save this station is bankruptcy, when the entire company can be restructured and sold to a new deep pocket investor and new management. And it would be great to bring back the old name and start brand new. If I was the HK government I would be actively pursue a deal with a local HK tycoon, provided there are new owners and management.
The current shareholders are asking too much money according to reports.
Basicially, nobody wants to invest that much money to buy ATV, because ATV has also a lot of debt. The debt must be written off, but the debtholder (Wong Jing) does not want that.
At the current state, if the debt is not written off, you have to pay so much money that you can actually buy TVB instead of ATV.
Even if ATV is bankrupt, it does not mean the TV license will go to HKTV.
right,if that is the case then they should give the station back the original name,also because their greatest days are back in the late ’70 and begin ’80 when they named as lai dik tv.
Kolo what has the name of the station got to do with ATV’s current state?
Sorry, RJ so go bankrupt is the answer? It’s like an individual or a small business going bankrupt, think of all the companies they owe money too, and even down to the workers what do they do? Assets sold, guess who will be at the bottom of the list to receive any money and how long will this take? Unlike most western countries they receive state assistance in these circumstances, Hong Kong has always been if you don’t work, you don’t eat! They need a whole new takeover from people who know how to run a business and hire people who know how to run a production company.
The need a complete rebranding. But if that is true why not just put ATV into the HK History Museum in East TST. They should have kept Ricky Wong as CEO when they had a chance. It’s HKTV’s time to make HK history now!
RJ you have obviously taken to HKTV