Frankie Lam Shares About Future ATV Projects
In recent years, Frankie Lam (林文龍) partook in many big-budget series at TVB, including Another Era <再創世紀> and My Unfair Lady <不懂撒嬌的女人>. With meaty roles at TVB, Frankie surprised many when it was announced in December that he has taken on the new role as vice president of TVB’s old rival station, ATV. Stepping from on-screen to behind-the-scenes, Frankie wants to bring new breadth to the ailing company.
An insider revealed, “Frankie has been in the entertainment industry for more than 30 years. He has been a lead actor for many years and has reached a bottleneck in his career. When ATV’s chairman, Jessy Lai (賴彩雲), sought him out, it was not to be an actor, but to assume a role in management. For someone like Frankie who has never been in a management role, this was definitely a new challenge. Chairman Lai is confident in Frankie’s networking and experiences in the industry and has promised him a great level of freedom. He considered it for a while, and felt that it is time to step up to the challenge and change up his disciplined lifestyle. His wife, Kenix Kwok (郭可盈), is very supportive and feels that he should take advantage of this opportunity.”
Frankie has already began making changes. Earlier, he completely remodeled ATV station. In response to the coronavirus outbreak, Frankie purchased 200,000 face masks and passed them out to Hong Kong citizens at the beginning of February. He also donated 10 million RMB to support Wuhan’s epidemic prevention.
Wants to Cast Popular 1990s Artistes
All these efforts aside, however, the core function of ATV ultimately is drama productions. An insider expressed, “After joining ATV, Frankie has been involved in meetings regarding management and production strategies. Since he believes that competition only aids improvement, he has been moving forward with no apprehension. ATV will start filming dramas soon, and he doesn’t want it to be hurried and careless.
On this front, Frankie has actually been seeking out popular 1990s Hong Kong artistes to collaborate with ATV. “Frankie has many friends in the industry and he has been pulling favors to recruit artistes. He sought out many artistes that he and his wife have worked with in the past, including Bobby Au Yeung (歐陽震華), Michael Tao (陶大宇), Gallen Lo (羅嘉良), and Lawrence Ng (吳啟華)…. He is putting everything into this and just wants to give the audience more choices,” the insider shared.
Frankie Shares His Plans
In a recent interview, Frankie spoke about his upcoming plans. He said, “At this time, I am taking things one step at a time. We need to work on building a strong foundation first. I am someone with high expectations, so it doesn’t always go smoothly on getting someone I want. I have to see how it plays out. Chairman Lai has given me a large degree of freedom. If I think it is the right decision, I will move forward with it. We will spend money where money should be spent. Since she has so much faith in me, I will work even harder.
Frankie shared that ATV will focus on developing content to air on the Internet, “Right now, we will only be doing web-related projects. Investors’ desire is the same, and they want to continue with the current path.”
Stating that ATV will be filming dramas this year, Frankie has already been in contact with friends in the industry regarding possible collaborations. He said, “After I assumed the role, many in the industry have contacted me, including some of my old coworkers at TVB. They all said that the contract style these days allows artistes to take on work at other companies. From my perspective, I hope to have a ‘hundred flowers bloom at once’, and everyone helps out one another. I feel that if TVB could be more open and allow artistes to film dramas at ATV, I will welcome them with open arms.”
He continued, “Nothing is finalized yet. However, I have been in touch with many of my previous colleagues these past two weeks to see if there are any opportunities for collaboration.”
Source: Weekend Weekly
This article is written by Huynh for JayneStars.com.
Frankie Lam, Kenix Kwok, Kong Wah and More Attend 2019 Miss Asia Pageant
RIP ATV.
This guy is just a poster boy and only acting as a bridge to bring on talent. No competent corporation would hire an inexperienced actor that had never worked in a day of top-level management to take on an executive management role. That is corporate suicide. The only exception is if he has no real power and that he’s only acting as a middle man.
@anon
Agreed. Being an actor is very different from being an executive to manage a big TV station. Frankie Lam has never worked in any corporations even as a junior staff. How can he run a big TV station (corporation)? What he knows is acting (in fact he is not even a good actor) in fake roles. They are not even real life roles.
Good luck to ATV!!
I do missed Atv I actually thought their quality are way better than TVB’s.
When will people start realizing that bringing back old actors is just a band-aid solution?
@rika
Yup, as the audience, even we can see that, Frankie being a part of the entertainment industry for over 30 years and is unable to see that shows how incompetent he is for this job.