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The Government today (June 5) announced that the Chief Executive in Council had approved six individuals, who were disqualified persons under the Broadcasting Ordinance, to exercise control of Asia Television Limited (ATV) when the two acquisitions of ATV's shares proposed by new investors take effect.
The six individuals are as follows. The reasons for them being disqualified persons are at Annex A.
(a) Mr Payson Cha Mou-sing;
(b) Mr Johnson Cha Mou-daid ;
(c) Mr Sun Yalei;
(d) Mr Yang Gang;
(e) Mr Louis Rajkumar Page; and
(f) Mr David Roberts.
"The Administration approved ATV's applications for Mr Payson Cha to become the Chairman and Director of ATV, and other five individuals to become directors of the company. This would allow new shareholders to invest substantively in a long-standing free TV broadcaster in Hong Kong, thereby enhancing the competition in Hong Kong's free television market. This is positive to the development of the broadcasting industry and the economy of Hong Kong," a spokesman for the Commerce, Industry and Technology Bureau said.
The disqualified person issue in respect of the above six individuals arises as a result of their association with television programme service licences in Hong Kong and advertising agencies in the Mainland.
In assessing the possible risk of media concentration arising from approving these six persons to exercise control of ATV, the Administration noted that the two non-domestic television programme service licensees and the eight Mainland advertising agencies concerned did not operate, or exert much influence, in Hong Kong; and the two other licensable television programme service licensees involved provided television services in only three hotels in Hong Kong as an ancillary service to the hotel guests. Thus, all these media and advertising companies are operating in different markets as compared to ATV, one of the two domestic free television programme service licensees in Hong Kong.
"The disqualified persons in question are controllers or associates of controllers of the media and advertising companies either operating outside Hong Kong or having an extremely limited scale of service in Hong Kong. Granting the approval for them to exercise control over ATV will not cause any negative impact on the competition in the Hong Kong's free-to-air television market, and will not affect the diversity of programme choices available to Hong Kong viewers. It will not pose any risk of media concentration or editorial uniformity either.
"On the other hand, the injection of working capital from the new investors will help make ATV financially healthier, and will assist ATV to improve the quality of its television programme service in terms of choice and variety and implement its digital terrestrial television plan to launch four more standard-definition television channels and some high-definition television contents shortly. This indirectly enriches the programme choice of local viewers," the spokesman said.
The six disqualified people in question were appointed to exercise control of ATV by some new investors, who propose to acquire shares of ATV in the following manner:
(a) Alnery No. 112 Limited, the voting shares of which being either directly or indirectly held by Mr Payson Cha, Mr Johnson Cha, Mr Louis Page and ABN AMRO N.V. (Hong Kong Branch), to acquire 47.58% of ATV's shares;
(b) Panfair Holdings Limited, the voting shares of which being directly held by Mr Payson Cha and Mr Johnson Cha, to acquire 10.75% of ATV's shares; and
(c) China Light Group Limited, the voting shares of which being indirectly held by CITIC Group, to acquire 14.81% of ATV's shares.
The new investors had proposed that their planned acquisitions of ATV's shares were subject to the CE-in-Council's approval for the disqualified persons under application to exercise control of ATV. A brief account of the purposes of the disqualified persons provisions under the Ordinance, and the factors that the Chief Executive in Council should take into account when considering the applications for disqualified persons to exercise control of a domestic free television programme service licensee, is at Annex B.
The Broadcasting Authority, the independent broadcasting industry regulator, has also approved the proposed acquisition of ATV's shares by China Light Group Limited in accordance with the "unqualified voting controllers" provisions of the ordinance, which required voting controllers who were not ordinarily resident in Hong Kong to seek the authority's prior approval before acquiring 2% or more of shares in a domestic free television programme service licensee. The Broadcasting Authority also granted a waiver to ATV under its domestic free television programme service licence and non-domestic television programme service licences to effect the change of ATV's overall shareholding and corporate structure.
Ends/Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Issued at HKT 17:23
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