An institution in Hong Kong media just ended on Friday. Asia Television (ATV), the oldest free broadcaster in the special administrative region (SAR) closed on April 1 after 59 years.
The final show aired by ATV was a replay of the 2013 Miss Asia Pageant. The closure was because of a decision on April 1, 2015, by the Hong Kong government not to renew the free-to-air TV license of ATV. The SAR law mandates giving the broadcaster a 12-month notice if the license is not renewed, reported Xinhua News Agency.
ATV opened in 1957 as Rediffusion Television, launched by a British broadcaster as a pay-TV service, according to The South China Morning Post. It eventually became a pioneer of entertainment in Hong Kong by acquiring anime shows from Japan such as “Astro Boy” by Osamu Tezuka in 1966. It became a free-to-air broadcaster in 1973.
The station’s peak was in the 1980s. Among the shows that ATV aired and hit with Hong Kong residents were “Crocodile Tears” in 1978 and “Fatherland” in 1980 which captured 60 percent audience share.
But by late 1990s, ATV was affected by a financial crisis after several changes of owners. Among the reasons for the downfall of ATV was that none of the new owners had a TV background, said Chung Yat-ming, former ATV vice president of marketing and sales.
Deloitte, the provisional liquidator of ATV, laid off the last 400 employees in early March after it failed to enter into an agreement with Si Rongbin, the new investor.
After ATV signed off permanently, Radio Television Hong Kong took over the two analog channels of ATV and launched a TV broadcast. With ATV’s sign off, the only TV channel that now offers free-to-air shows in the SAR is Television Broadcast.