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Hong Kong and Taiwan should improve production capacity and ratings

2021-05-20T14:47:30.162Z


Radio Hong Kong was not granted the right to broadcast the Tokyo Olympics. Chief Executive Carrie Lam explained a few days ago that RTHK was unable to deploy equipment and manpower in a short period of time. But in fact, RTHK only operates two TV channels. Compared with each year in recent years


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Written by: Commentary Editing Room

2021-05-18 17:15

Last update date: 2021-05-18 17:15

Radio Hong Kong was not granted the right to broadcast the Tokyo Olympics. Chief Executive Carrie Lam explained a few days ago that RTHK was unable to deploy equipment and manpower in a short period of time.

But in fact, RTHK only operates two TV channels. Compared with the nearly 1 billion government funding in recent years, 500 million of which is allocated to TV and new media, and the resources are no longer lacking.

Why is it still regarded as incapable of broadcasting large-scale events or gaining more audiences?

Regarding the Olympic broadcast rights, "Hong Kong 01" quoted a source saying that Hong Kong and Taiwan set up a production team from scratch, and the broadcast expenditure would easily cost tens of millions or even nearly 100 million yuan, so it is not among the broadcast platforms.

It is true that the broadcasting of large-scale projects requires additional expenses, but what is surprising is why the preparatory work for RTHK has to start from scratch and cannot use existing manpower.

It’s weird to say that there are not enough resources to make

Hong Kong and Taiwan’s own TV channel started broadcasting about five years ago, and will implement 24-hour broadcasting in April 2019.

Indeed, the broadcast came hurriedly at the time, and the manpower and equipment were not ready in time, so it was necessary to rebroadcast the program continuously to fill the time slot.

As the government increases expenditure and manpower increases, the pressure on broadcasting should be relieved.

Moreover, RTHK's current promotion of sports information is not inferior to other TV stations. For example, the "Sports Without Limit" program introduces domestic and overseas competitions. It has always invited professional commentators to comment on sports events, and even a special commissioner interviewed the 2014 Incheon Asian Games.

Carrie Lam said that Hong Kong and Taiwan cannot afford the production costs of Olympic programs at this stage.

(Profile picture)

Roughly compare the accounts of ViuTV, which has recently become a hot topic in the society, with the expenditures in the TV category of Hong Kong and Taiwan.

In 2020, the expenditure on "free TV and related services" including ViuTV is roughly about 482 million yuan.

RTHK’s revised budget for TV projects in the 2020-2021 fiscal year is 577.5 million yuan.

Of course, there are differences in the calculation accounts and business models of the two, and it is difficult to directly compare them. However, the number of channels and the operating period of the two are similar. From this point of view, the public funds received by RTHK are at least not extremely tight.

Since ViuTV can broadcast Olympic programs, and RTHK also has experience in producing live and sports programs, RTHK deploys manpower and equipment to broadcast the Olympics under the existing resources. It should not be as difficult as Lam Chenghe RTHK said.

RTHK now says that it has no conditions for broadcasting. It may be due to past resource misallocations. For example, RTHK used to allocate excessive resources for the production of educational television, with an hourly production cost of 1.58 million yuan. It was not corrected until the Audit Commission criticized it.

Should have been planning for development

Taking a step back, even if RTHK has made good use of public funds in the past, why didn't the Government add additional equipment to RTHK in the past few years to strengthen its strength?

Pay close attention to Carrie Lam’s response. She refers to "Let it have enough investment to purchase equipment needed for broadcasting, hire more people, and send a crew to Tokyo. It will also be capable; but at this time, it is not capable. Do so many things in a short time."

The implication is that Hong Kong and Taiwan can increase the scale of expansion.

In fact, the Tokyo Olympics were finalized as early as 2013, and Hong Kong and Taiwan definitely have plenty of time to prepare.

As for the accountability team level, even if they are not specifically targeting the Tokyo Olympics, they should also plan for Hong Kong and Taiwan to broadcast other major world sports events as soon as possible.

Do Hong Kong and Taiwan and even the Bureau of Commerce and Economics pay attention to this?

Broadcasting in large-scale events is not harmful to Hong Kong and Taiwan, especially the use of mega events to increase the audience of before and after the program, and promote the popularity of the channel.

Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor served as the host in the Hong Kong and Taiwan program "Overview of Election Committee Subsectors"

Some TV programs of Hong Kong and Taiwan have been well-received, but generally speaking, they are still not popular.

According to the budget, the number of viewers of the RTHK 31 prime-time TV program from 2019 to 2020 is only 19,600, and the highest viewership is only 111,000, which is not even the population of the four Taikoo Shings.

As far as the programs broadcast on YouTube are concerned, the number of individual episodes can surpass one million clicks, but generally speaking, there are only a few thousand to ten thousand.

The just-broadcast "Overview of the Election Committee Subsectors", the most popular one is that although the episode interviewed by Wang Mingquan has 68,000 views, the ratings of other episodes are relatively average.

Even if the program is produced by the government, RTHK is only the broadcaster, but if RTHK itself is a TV station that the public often watch, the number of "basic disks" should be more clicked.

It is true that there is still no final decision on whether this Olympics will be a success, but RTHK's lack of broadcasting rights does reflect that the broadcasting policies of RTHK and the Policy Bureau are incorrect.

The management of RTHK used to waste public money and failed to make good use of resources to prepare broadcasting projects. The Accountability Bureau underestimated the role of RTHK and did not know how to use broadcasting events to strengthen RTHK while avoiding the dilemma of buying without TV stations.

In this regard, both the Director of Broadcasting as the head of RTHK and the Bureau of Commerce and Economic Development overseeing RTHK have the responsibility.

In the past, the government was often approved to "dry in the dark". If you want to prove that the government has no intention, you should review the use of RTHK's resources with RTHK's management. Like other public TV stations, it is on par with commercial channels.

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Source: hk1

All news articles on 2021-05-20

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