ATV Fired Up on Dooms Day, Fires 5 Truanting Artists

In the past year, ATV's rating has hit a new low, several of their programs are getting TV ratings of 0 (zero). Earlier investor (Wong Ching) did the popular horse-riding dance protesting against the government's issue of more free-to-air licenses, the outcome was 'shocking'! In the past week, ATV suddenly 'threw a tantrum' and asked their young inexperienced artists to undergo an artists training class. ATV executive and first line artists including Jaclyn Chu, Gilbert Lam, Kenneth Chan and Lau Shek Yin served as their instructors. All 'Miss Asia', 'Mr. Asia', 'Asian Million Stars' and contracted artists must report to Tai Po to accept ATV's training on acting. The training is four weeks long, Monday to Fridays, from 10am to 12pm, and then again from 2pm to 5pm. It is close to the normal office work hours (9-5pm).

Monday's lesson was surprising mostly about ATV's 55 years in the industry, their footprints, standpoint and views on the free television licenses. The lesson was similar to a brainwashing course and the content was very boring. Several artists left half way and didn't go to class at all in the following two days. ATV executives were highly displeased by their behavior and on Thursday, they asked contracted artists to sign another term in the agreement. The artists are to promise to actively accommodate to ATV's training project. Yesterday Wong Ching personally served as the instructor of the class and was alarmed to see the low attendance rate. He was very angered, he immediately went to find the absented artists and fired 4-5 of them, including former Miss HK Priscilla Chi, Ben Cheung, lengmo Aki Chan, and host Cheung Tsz Ying (Che Che).

This issue startled many artists, they commented on how heartless ATV was being. They believed forcing artists to attend an unpaid training and working for free is unreasonable. Some of the comments made were, "Why force artists to go to the course every day, like its an office job?" , "Since ATV and the audience already recognize us as artists, then why do we still have to attend these lessons?" , "There are no series filming now, then why are they still trying to teach us acting?". It was understood, Priscilla and Che Che were back at ATV yesterday to get their "big envelope".

As one of the instructors, Kenneth Chan was shocked to hear the news, he feels everyone should maintain peace: "This is a heavy punishment, there should be a warning first!" He expressed he is not in HK a lot, and his topic was 'messing with one's mind', which is very vague. "If I'm able to help new colleagues understand the work more, then that's okay, but they should really hire a professional instructor to do the training. (Salary?) Haven't discussed that yet!" Kenneth expressed he doesn't have an educational background in performing arts, so he does not know how to teach others, but he's also fears if he says no he'll be the one fired as well.

ATV executive Yip Ka Bo responded: "Those artists were dismissed only because they could not accommodate the company's requests. (Artists feel taking lessons again is unreasonable?) This is not an acting course, it is a training course. It is fair and square. They could not accommodate, then ATV had to take such action. (Their contract says they must take this course?) The dismissed artists had that written in their contracts." Yip Ka Bo expressed "Asian Million Star" (Gong Si Hak), Miss Asia (Dominy Chau) and artist Chun Kai Wai were given a raise for good performance.

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ATV makes a song and dance protesting against HK Free-to-air Licenses

ATV executive director Shing Pan-yu borrowed a fighting phrase from mainland strongman Jiang Zemin to tell a tycoon to stick to the broadband telecom business he's in now and not to interfere in the free-to-air television sector.

Speaking during a 90-minute live broadcast yesterday to protest against the issue of new TV licenses, Shing told Ricky Wong Wai-kay, one of at least three hopefuls for a license to develop television services on the internet, that "river water should not interfere with well water."

Jiang used those words in 1989 when he was Communist Party chief - he was president from 1993 to 2003 and still packs a punch in the mainland - to warn Hong Kong against trying to interfere in central government affairs.

Ironically, ATV was fined HK$300,000 by the broadcast authority for a false report on July 6 last year that Jiang had died.

Shing's unprecedented high-profile live show was immediately condemned by Civic Party lawmaker Claudia Mo Man-ching. She said ATV had used airtime improperly to propagate its message and that complaints are expected to be made to the Communications Authority.

But an ATV spokesman countered last night, saying that broadcasting the show live was reasonable, legitimate and fair, adding that the station opposed any form of political censorship.

Participants in yesterday afternoon's show included contestants in the Miss Asia Pageant and Mr Asia competition.

They took to a catwalk in front of the government's Tamar headquarters before joining others to shout slogans to oppose anyone else entering the free- television arena, which is now restricted to ATV and TVB.

Shing also cited the collapse in the late 1970s of Commercial Television, a third free-to-air station, to claim that keen competition in the business meant there was no space for anyone else. Commercial Television began broadcasting in 1975 and went off screens in 1978 and was declared bankrupt.

"If the government issues additional free-TV licenses, it can lead to the collapse of a TV station, and this will only cause more problems in Hong Kong," Shing argued.

ATV's major investor, Wong Ching, who also attended the show, weighed in by predicting "disaster" if new free-to-air licenses were granted.

Also there was Basic Law Committee member Lau Nai-keung and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference member Lew Mon-hung, who spoke in support of ATV.

But ATV senior vice president Kwong Hoi-ying had to come out later to reject complaints by some staff that they were forced to join the show.

Ricky Wong also came back after the barrage to insist "it's necessary for the government to issue more free-TV licenses to enhance competition in the TV market."

He said he has already recruited more than 700 artistes and other personnel to prepare for a new channel, and if all goes well and he obtains a license there will be around 1,800 employees next year.

He had earlier threatened to sue the government for the continuing delay on issuing new licenses.

Mo argued that yesterday's broadcast "absolutely undermined public interests" and was unfair applicants for licenses.

And Democratic Party lawmaker Emily Lau Wai-hing said it was a conflict of interest for ATV to broadcast the live show to press the government not to grant licenses.

A spokeswoman for the Communications Authority said any complaints would be investigated.

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TVB & ATV 'sits together' for the first time to jointly do the London Olympics coverage

TVB and ATV jointly held a press conference yesterday to announce the broadcast arrangements of the 2012 London Summer Olympics. The two TV stations announced the unprecedented use of the same live broadcast room to report the Olympics opening ceremony. When the time comes, TVB and ATV hosts will 'sit together' to provide coverage on the Olympic games.

Yesterday Eric Tsang, Nat Chan, Kate Tsui, Shirley Yeung, Rebecca Zhu and 30 other artists took part in the press conference to boost the atmosphere and to carry out a 'demonstration' against iCable, who has won the exclusive broadcast rights of the Olympics. Eric laughed and said he received a secret order to help iCable, but unfortunately he has to stay with TVB. Eric is happy that the Olympic broadcast issue has been resolved because the Olympics is a grand event after all and every individual should be able to enjoy it.

Last year, ATV and TVB had a verbal war due to the TV rating miscalculations, but this time they suddenly became friends again, and announced that ATV artists will be going into TVB City to take part in a special program. TVB assistant GM (Au Wai Lam) expressed on stage thanking iCable for investing 120 million HKD to buy the broadcast rights for the Olympic games. "This time, the collaboration between ATV and TVB reflects the Olympic spirit, it's a triple winner. Thank you iCable and ATV. Together (ATV/TVB) we have a hundred years of history, our broadcast of the Olympics will definitely be successful!" Then Mr. Au joked: "In fact, we should let ATV come up and talk first. Firstly, that is being polite and secondly the location is called Tai Po Civic Centre, ATV is located in Tai Po, so it's their home ground!" ATV's VP (Kwong Hoi Ying) also expressed TVB Pearl and ATV's International channel will make up the Olympics channel. Each day, there will be 10 hours of coverage on the Olympics.

Kate Tsui and Shirley Yeung hopes to go to London. Shirley expressed: "I had the experience of doing interviews in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. (Who's going to look after your daughter?) My mom and worker can help!"

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