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 accessible 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 to ensure their stable cooperation in programme productions, advertising and sales.
Numerous awards are awarded to ATV for its programmes. One of their successes is Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (百 萬 富 翁), which is a game show founded in the United Kingdom in 1998. In 2001, ATV bought the production rights in Hong Kong. Since then, the popularity of ATV has increased. This also had prompted the other local TV station - TVB - to respond by producing similar game shows.
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, they were offered a wireless television broadcasting licence which ended its fifteen-year cable service. Later, it was renamed as Rediffusion Television Limited or RTV.
In 1981, Rediffusion in the UK sold 61% of his shares to an Australian consortium. In July 1982, a Chinese Enterprise called Yuen-dung Company 遠東機構, owned by the Chiu family, bought part of the shares. At that time, Yuen-dung Company and the Australian consortium each owned 50% of Rediffusion's shares. This is the first time that a Chinese Enterprise played a role in Rediffusion. It was not until September 24, 1982 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 Rediffusion did not own any shares of ATV afterwards.
However, this did not put an end to the change in the ATV partnership. The company which operated ATV often suffered from deficit. Therefore, in January 1984, the withdrawal of the Australian enterprise affirmed the Chiu Family to buy all of the shares.
In August 1987, the shares of ATV were put on sale. One year afterwards, Asia Television Limited, the Lam family (led by Lim Por Yen 林百欣) and the New World Group bought ATV’s shares. Each one occupied one-third of the shares. At that time, the members of Board Of Directors included Yau Dak-kan (邱德根), Lim Por Yen (林 百 欣) and Chen Yue-tung (鄭裕彤).
On January 30, 1989, the Chiu Family sold their shares of ATV to the New World Group and the Lai-sun Enterprise (麗新集團) for HK$237.5 million. The New World Group held half of the shares while the Lam family owned one-third and Lai-sunEnterprise held one-sixth. At the same time, Sociedade de Turismo e Diversoes de Macau (STDM) joined as a minority shareholder. As announced by the Board of Directors, the new Chairman was Chen Yue-tung and the Vice-Chairman was Lim Por Yen. The Administrative Director was Miss Selina Chow (周梁淑儀).
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.
On January 20, 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 channels which broadcast in Hong Kong. It offers a variety of programmes, mostly from foreign countries, ranging 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 Investigation, 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 the internet.
In order to make news more accessible, ATV has established an electronic news site which is a link insides the company's website (see 'External Links'). 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 NEWS 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 the ATV website. The website, which is accompanied 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. Some of the information you'll find at the ATV website includes the introduction of its company, schedules of TV programmes, promotion of upcoming events, reviews of some TV programmes, and more.
Since the beginning, ATV experienced a five-fold increase in the number of shareholders. During June 2002, businessman Chan Wing-kei (陳永祺) along with the 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 shares. Afterwards, Chan Wing-kei took the post of Administrative Director General. With the change of shareholder, there was innovation in the direction of production, marketing strategy and human resources. 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
(adapted 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
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 Website
Partnership
¹ - New Directors to be appointed
² - Not of permanent residency statusLicence
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