While it’s fighting the fierce fight for full control of its airwaves, TVB’s red carpets have been burning up, mostly for the broadcaster’s 50th anniversary celebrations, but also for the 25th anniversary of its partnership with Singapore pay-TV platform StarHub.

TVB chairman, Charles Chan, said during the Golden Jubilee dinner for 1,000 people in Hong Kong in November that the broadcaster would continue to “uphold its fine tradition in continuing its quest for new development and business opportunities”.

Chan outlined milestones in TVB’s transformation, including streaming platform myTV SUPER and TVB Anywhere in overseas markets, as well as investing heavily in movie and TV production both at home and abroad.

The Golden Jubilee was celebrated only a few weeks after StarHub played host to TVB stars, led by Wayne Lai and Nancy Sit, who were conferred the StarHub TVB Awards’ Most Popular TVB Drama Male and Female Character for their timeless portrayals of iconic TV characters.

Hong Kong’s leading broadcaster, Television Broadcasts Ltd (TVB), is clashing yet again with the territory’s regulators, demanding (again) that they ditch outdated requirements and, essentially, get with the digital programme. The Communications Authority (CA) is having none of it, insisting that the rules are clear and easy to follow, and that TVB simply cannot do as it pleases when it pleases.

If the vehicle was a small infringement for which it was sanctioned in a minor way, TVB’s ultimate target is what it calls an “outdated” must-carry rule that forces it (and rival ATV when it was alive) to air programmes from government-funded broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK). Although adjusted from time to time, the requirement dates back to the days when Hong Kong was under British rule and RTHK didn’t have its own TV channels. As part of their licence conditions, commercial broadcasters had to give TV airtime to RTHK.

The flash point re-fl ared at the end of October/early November over prerecorded footage of Chinese President Xi Jinping. TVB aired the footage on fl agship Jade channel on 30 June this year, in place of scheduled RTHK show Headliner. The visit during the 20th anniversary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region was Xi’s fi rst to Hong Kong in his capacity as Chinese president. TVB’s position is that Xi – pre-recorded or not – trumps RTHK’s non-news programme Headliner, which was originally scheduled to air at 6pm. Headliner eventually aired later that evening.

Sidestepping the political argument that TVB had muted Headliner because of a tone that wasn’t China friendly, the CA laid out its argument in clear terms: the decision to preempt the RTHK programme without approval breaches the rules. Simple. The CA points out that it has approved similar applications from TVB in the past, and has been careful to emphasise that it respects TVB’s editorial independence. To support its line, the CA says it received 406 complaints over this specific incident.

At the same time, the authority isn’t levying any penalty for the breach other than “strongly” advising TVB to observe licence directions – a largely meaningless judgement that on a less incendiary issue would have been swatted off by TVB as noise.

Penalty or not, TVB grabbed the opportunity, using the CA’s decision to call for an end to the must-carry rule it has long railed against. “This outdated requirement should cease as soon as possible”, TVB said in a strongly worded statement, adding that the CA’s decision shows “complete disregard for the circumstances under which the RTHK programme was rescheduled”.

The bigger picture is that TVB wants to be able to control and fully monetise prime time, and, although it has some discretion over which RTHK shows to choose, it can’t under the current conditions. The latest CA directive, implemented on 1 April 2017, forces TVB Jade to air 2.5 hours of RTHK programmes a week. “Mandatory carriage of RTHK programmes adversely affects TVB’s programming and rescheduling flexibility,” the broadcaster says, adding that RTHK, which now has three digital terrestrial TV channels and two analogue TV channels, “has no reason to continue to occupy TVB’s precious high-rating time slots”. And there you have it, the argument in a nutshell. Don’t expect it to go away anytime soon.

Published on ContentAsia's Issue Seven, 27 November 2017