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.

Posted in: ATV,Hong Kong