12 May 2015

Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) welcomes the government's renewal of its domestic free television programme service licence for 12 years. In fulfilling its obligations, TVB will continue to strive to serve the people of Hong Kong and produce high quality programmes.

The Hong Kong television market is relatively small and highly regulated. Television stations are susceptible to changing economic situation or other market factors, resulting in challenges to advertising revenue and rising operating costs. ATV's situation to a certain extent reflected the difficult market situation and operating environment.

The problems of outdated advertising restrictions and rampant online copyright infringement are of particular concern. The rules on indirect advertisement fail to keep abreast of the changing times and should be removed or relaxed to allow television stations to generate more advertising revenue.

The proliferation of online video sites and set-top boxes offering unauthorised contents seriously affect not just television stations, but the entire creative industry. The present laws, including the Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2014 in its current form, will not be effective in stopping the existing piracy activities in the market.

We urge the government to take immediate action to address the concern of the industry and improve the amendment bill to stem the increasing online copyright infringement.

With rising competition from new entrants to the market and unregulated network television, TVB hopes to work with the government to better facilitate the healthy development of the local television industry.

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