TVB and rival Asia Television (ATV) have joined hands in battling the Government over licencing regulations that are up for renewal in December 2003. Stephen Chan, TVB's assistant general manager, said: "In my opinion, I think the Government is being purely colonial. They are concerned that Hong Kong will be like any other city in China (if the English language content is reduced)."
Both TVB and ATV said deregulation would lessen their reliance on US-imports and movies, allowing them to screen Japanese, Korean and other European language content. As the two stations push for more non-English content, a new player has entered the field. Broadcaster Richard Chua is planning to launch an all-English channel on the digital platform.
See Analysis page 25.
