News Article: Hong Kong’s top TV channels ranked – Media Report 2017

I came across the below article that recaps the top TV channels in Hong Kong based on a Marketing survey..  Details of the survey (including criteria, how it was conducted, number of responses, etc.) are all recapped at the beginning of the article.

I'm actually super-surprised to see ViuTV in the number one spot!  Since they launched last year, I always felt that they had a niche audience, since their programs and the station itself is not covered much in traditional / mainstream media outlets…but I guess advertisers think differently.  In a way, this is a good thing because it means that advertisers are not being biased toward TVB like almost everyone else in HK is and they are willing to put their support behind underdogs that have potential.  Actually, on second thought, I really shouldn't be surprised, since advertisers had already said previously (back when HKTV was still in the picture) that many in their field are tired of TVB's "same old same old" approach and are willing to put their money into other stations that show potential.  This is partly why Ricky Wong was never worried about whether he would get advertising support if HKTV were to get a license and officially launch...I vaguely remember (would need to pull my notes to confirm) that the advertising association in HK (of which almost all advertising firms were a part of) had released a statement back then that they would commit advertising to HKTV if they were to launch (since that was a huge concern back then due to TVB constantly crying a river over advertising revenue dropping).  [Sidenote – I've actually been keeping an eye on ViuTV the past year and while they got off to a rocky start due to their initially upside down policy of only doing infotainment programs rather than series, they've definitely turned things around in recent months with the focus on producing series rather than only infotainment programs.  While I doubt that they will be the next HKTV, it's good to see that ViuTV is finally coming into its own…though of course, it has a LONG ways to go to catch up to TVB…]

The other shocker for me was seeing TVMost on this list (they came in at #8) – for a non-official TV station whose sole purpose is to parody other stations / programs / people, etc., that's actually quite an achievement!  [Shout out to sport3888:  I'm sure you must be grinning from ear to ear right now!  LOL!]

The other interesting part is that ViuTV made the list, but their parent company, cable channel NowTV, didn't make the cut at all, which in a way I'm not too surprised about since there have been complaints galore about NowTV over the past few years (I can't remember whether it was Alan Tam or Hacken Lee who always used to complain on Weibo about NowTV because they carry a lot of sports events and the reception was always super poor quality….I've heard that people were actually happy to cancel their subscriptions at one point).  

Anyway…check out who else made the top 10.  Did any of these rankings shock you?  Feel free to comment down below. 

**Note:  My apologies for not putting the pictures from the article up – I'm posting this from my phone and the process to post pictures is super cumbersome.  If I remember, I'll fix the post when I'm able to access from a computer…otherwise, if you want to see the pictures, you can read the article from its original source via the link below.

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Hong Kong's top TV channels ranked – Media Report 2017

Source:  Marketing Interactive

http://www.marketing-interactive.com/hong-kongs-top-tv-channels-ranked-media-report-2017/

Each year Marketing undertakes one of its most significant research projects to discover the media preferences of Hong Kong's top marketers.

The aim of the Media Benchmarking Survey is pretty simple; to understand which media platforms marketers look to for advertising solutions across digital, outdoor, TV, radio and print platforms.

We ask respondents to name the magazine, TV station, digital platform or OOH groups they would use to target consumers across key industry verticals from luxury, local business and finance, news and current affairs, property, travel and consumer electronics.

This article we highlight the top 10 in TV broadcasters.

Methodology

How did we achieve this?

The media rankings were derived from questions in Marketing Research's annual Media Spend Benchmarking Survey. Marketing Research employed an online questionnaire and surveyed its database of client advertisers and marketing services agency professionals. All answers given by respondents were considered by Marketing when finalising the rankings.

Quality recipients and respondents

A total of 587 respondents participated in the Media Spend Benchmarking Survey. Genuine advertising decision-makers and influencers across key agency-using industries were well represented as were agency professionals from various marketing services.

Over 80% of client advertiser-side respondents were manager-level decision-makers and above, with 10% from the most senior ranks of client advertisers – CEOs, MDs or GMs – and another 31% were VPs or director-level marketers.

Twenty percent of the respondents from the agency side were CEOs, MDs or GMs, 30% were marketing personnel, while 25% were sales personnel. The remaining 25% were operations, creative and media personnel.

Advertisers from major and local international banks, FMCG companies, property and construction, IT and telecommunication firms, as well as those from travel and tourism companies participated in the survey. Agency professionals across the marketing services spectrum were also well represented.

Television Broadcasters of the Year

1 ViuTV

Currently in its second year of operation, ViuTV has taken the TV world by storm as it now leads the category for local marketers. The channel operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and its English arm ViuTVsix offers 17 hours of programming per day, including three to four hours of news and public affairs, lifestyle, overseas dramas and documentaries, such as HBO originals True Blood and Boardwalk Empire.

The channel's rapid rise to fame did not go unnoticed, as it swiped up numerous at Marketing's The Spark Awards 2017, including gold awards for Fast Growth, Best Launch/Relaunch and Best Engagement Strategy, as well as silver awards in Best Entertainment Platform and Best Use of Content.

2 TVB

While TVB slipped to second place this year – in no small part due to the entry of a new local challenger – it still managed to keep a spot in the top three on the year of its 50th anniversary. To better compete with the rise of streaming services, TVB launched its own social live streaming app dubbed 'Big big channel' in a bid to engage younger, internet-savvy viewers and generate more ad revenue – a move that has clearly paid off, especially considering the modern TV landscape.

3 Bloomberg

After a slide to sixth spot last year, Bloomberg is back in the top three. Headquartered in New York, USA, and a division of Bloomberg LP, the news agency covers international news, disseminated through television, terminals, radio, markets, the Bloomberg website, Bloomberg's mobile platforms and Businessweek.

While their digital offering is comprehensive, they haven't forgotten about traditional formats and recently opened a new TV studio in Hong Kong to enhance the brand's media technology assets, which will produce programmes covering all of Asia.

4 BBC

Down one spot since last year, the UK-headquartered public service broadcaster British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has strengthened its mobile and online offerings to facilitate changing tastes. While its World Service radio broadcast was recently replaced on RTHK, the TV side is still going strong.

5 CNN

CNN likewise slid down one spot in the rankings this year. Staffed 24 hours, seven days a week by a staff both in CNN's world headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, and in global bureaus, the broadcaster boasts a global team of almost 4,000 news professionals, and has recently expanded its presence in Hong Kong, when it appointed Karen Vera as creative lead for in-house brand studio Create, Asia Pacific.

6 Cable TV

Cable TV has been on a gradual descent over the past few years, and 2017 was no exception as it dropped from fifth place into sixth.

With the uncertain future of i-CABLE Communications Limited' TV offerings earlier this year, i-CABLE announced that Forever Top (Asia) Limited had become a controlling shareholder and injected new funds into the business last month. Additionally, the board underwent a number of changes as the company enters its next phase of development. New offerings include over 200 live games from German soccer league Bundesliga.

7 CNBC

CNBC enters the list this year, with a strong financial backbone to support it. CNBC is one of the world's largest business and financial networks. With international headquarters in Singapore in London, CNBC provides comprehensive 24-hour coverage from Asia to America, and beyond. In addition to the television services, CNBC is also available on tablet, mobile and desktop via CNBC.com and its apps.

8 TVMost

Satirical magazine 100most's TV service, while wholly offline, has grabbed enough marketshare for marketers to list it among the region's top TV channels. The channel provides satirical news services, often parodising existing programmes and channels to present the latest news in an entertaining and humourous way, presented by a slew of local celebrities.

Its Chinese slogan is: "Do our best instead of not having a TV licence issued by the government" – roughly translated to "Doing our best, despite the lack of a TV licence".

9 RTHK

Hong Kong's public broadcasting service Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) keeps its spot in ninth place this year. The service operates seven radio channels, and three TV channels, and produces educational, entertainment and public affairs programmes that are also broadcast on commercial channels. RTHK, like many public broadcasters, is directly funded by annual government allocation and operates as a department of the Communications Authority, but maintains a strong reputation for impartial coverage and editorial independence.

10 Fox

CBS Corporation earlier this year announced a content licensing and trademark agreement for SHOWTIME in South East Asia, Taiwan and Hong Kong. The agreement brought the SHOWTIME brand to these markets for the first time, including international hits like Twin Peaks, Californication and Dexter.

HK entertainment industry recent updates

As I was posting in a some forums last night, I came to the realization that not everyone may be aware of all the ‘turmoil’ that has been going on in the HK entertainment industry (and in HK as a whole) lately, so I felt the urge to write the below ‘recap’ as a means of summarizing some of the main issues.

First, the obvious piece of news that I’m sure everyone knows about:  ATV having to close up shop by April of this year.  Despite the shameless (and delusional) management at ATV continuing to keep the station on life support for as long as possible and refusing to accept the fact that their license was actually taken away by the government, the reality is that ATV has an ‘end date’ – whether the management team likes it or not, well, too bad…they just have to deal with it!  Personally, I would like ATV to close up shop sooner rather than later, as I’m tired of hearing the nonsensical garbage that comes out of the mouths of their imbecilic management – I mean, ok fine, be in denial all you want, but do you really think, Mr. CEO, that you can continue to be late with paying your employees (which is an issue in and of itself, as it’s obvious despite all the lawsuits and the judge’s warning about what will happen if ATV continues to not pay employees, ATV doesn’t give a crap, since they once again delayed paying their employees in Decemer), do absolutely nothing to prove that you deserve a license, then submit an application for a license and brag to everyone and their mothers that they are “100% certain” that the government will approve and re-issue a license to them?  Do you even know how utterly RIDICULOUS you sound??  I’m actually surprised that the government hasn’t taken any ‘drastic’ action against ATV given all the laws they’ve violated this past year, plus the fact that ATV has been ‘implicating’ time and time again that the government is ‘corrupt’, as they keep claiming that the government will approve this and that and will side with them and give them a license due to all their ‘connections’. [Meanwhile, the government relentlessly goes after HKTV and looks under rocks to find whatever way possible to force them out of the HK television market, despite the fact that HKTV followed all the proper procedures and never said or did anything that could be construed as ‘anti-HK government’ (that is, until their license was denied, after which Ricky Wong publicly denounced CY Leung – and rightfully so in my opinion)].  Oh, and what about that ‘new investor’ from Mainland who supposedly bought ATV?  After ATV’s ‘high profile’ announcement a few months ago that they had a buyer and the repeated claims that ‘everything will be fine now’, news about the sale has died down in recent months.  When asked about the sale and the new investor, ATV’s management appear to be clueless, as all they would say is that they don’t know any details but assume that things are ‘in the works’.  Yeah, whatever…I think 99.9% of the HK population doesn’t even give a damn about ATV anymore….

So while ATV is still holding on for dear life, those shameless bastards at TVB (I’m referring to the management team here) are sitting back on their laurels and gloating about being victorious once again with defending their monopoly (with the help of the HK government of course).  Despite the endless exit of artists, ridiculously low ratings, and criticism galore, TVB management continue to walk around arrogantly claiming that nothing is wrong and that TVB ‘is, was, and always will be’ the number one television station in HK.  I don’t think it’s lost on anyone that TVB has become even more complacent the last 2 years (ever since the government denied HKTV a license) and their programs as well as overall operations have hit the lowest point possible.  The current management is absolute crap and the decisions they make are ridiculously stupid – yet no one calls them out on anything and as a result, they continue to feed HK audiences garbage month after month (sad thing is, most of those audiences have no problem with TVB feeding them garbage and ‘happily’ devour it as though it’s the best-tasting stuff in the world….go figure!). 

Of course, those of us who’ve been following what’s been going on in recent years know that TVB announced last year that they will be focusing more on the Mainland (China) market going forward (despite the denials by management, it’s obvious this has something to do with the new Mainland investor that TVB is collaborating with).  In addition to airing more Mainland dramas in their ‘golden’ timeslot, TVB’s CEO Mark Lee (anyone who follows my comments/blog know how much I hate that guy) recently revealed plans to build an additional studio in Guangdong, China (like that studio they built in Shanghai or wherever TVBC operations is wasn’t enough) so that they can use that location to film the HK/Mainland collaboration series that they have plans for.  Meanwhile, TVB’s internal operations continue to be a mess, the management team continues to be embroiled in political power struggles,  production quality is going down the toilet, people are leaving left and right, etc. etc. etc. – but of course, no one at TVB cares because, well, honestly, HK as a whole is going down in flames anyway so why should they invest more time and money to improve things there when they can just cater to Mainland and laugh all the way to the bank?  

As if it’s not enough that HK’s 2 main free-to-air TV stations are going through issues galore, the radio stations in HK are not faring any better.  There has been an unprecedented amount of ‘shakeup’ in the management ranks at all 3 of HK’s radio stations in recent months.  

At Commercial Radio (CRHK), their long-time chairman/CEO Winnie Yu announced 2 weeks ago that she will be ‘stepping down’ from her position and leaving CRHK (Winnie has been at CRHK for more than 30 years and is pretty much responsible for making that station the success that it has been, plus she’s a well-respected figure in the HK entertainment industry).  There have not been further announcements on who will take over for Winnie or what type of restructuring will take place at the station, but given her influence and the tremendous impact she had, it’s hard for people not to be concerned – especially given the fact that in the past 2 years or so when she has been ‘less involved’ in CRHK’s operations (probably started ‘stepping back’ in preparation for this moment), issues already started to crop up that have put CRHK in the spotlight, and not in a good way either.  I will definitely be staying tuned in to the last developments with the management ‘changing of the guard’ at CRHK, as I’m curious to see who (if anyone) will take over.  One thing’s for sure though – I hope Stephen Chan won’t be the ‘chosen’ one.  Of course, I don’t ‘hate’ him the way I do Mark Lee (and other current TVB management), but I definitely have reservations about his ability to ‘lead’ CRHK.

Meanwhile, at rival radio station Metro, long-time exec Daniel Chu (he oversees the entertainment division of the station) also announced his retirement earlier in the month and as of last week, he officially left the station (rumor has it that he was actually ‘forced’ to retire, though he refuses to talk about it).  There’s more though – Metro is also going through a massive ‘layoff movement’ whereby majority of the employees who worked in the entertainment department are either being laid off (aka fired), transferred to other departments, or their work hours are being reduced (i.e. change from full-time to part-time).  Several of the DJs / radio hosts who were close to Daniel Chu were ‘fired’ on the spot – veteran music personality Chan Siu Bo is one of those hosts who was instantly ‘fired’ and his radio program stopped (of course he is livid, especially given the way the whole situation went down according to him).  The latest issue of Mingpao Magazine (published last week) actually details the shakeup at the radio stations and according to that article, the reason for the changes at Metro goes back to finances.   Apparently, the revenue numbers were posted for last year and Metro did not do too well overall – in reviewing the numbers, management came to the conclusion that the entertainment department was the main culprit, as entertainment-related programs rarely bring in much money…so the decision was made to ‘cut’ the entertainment department.  All entertainment-related programs (i.e. music programs, entertainment news programs, etc.) will be significantly reduced and content of current programs will be ‘changed’ to focus more on non-entertainment related stuff (i.e. current events, societal issues, politics, etc.)  How this will impact the entertainment industry remains to be seen, but there are already reports that claim the management team has plans to get rid of Metro’s music charts, which also means the yearly Metro Hit Music Awards may cease to exist in the near future as well (for the record, one of the execs at Metro recently denied this report as being false – but let’s wait and see…).

HK’s government-owned/operated radio station RTHK is also undergoing massive restructuring.  Several veteran DJs who had been hosting programs at RTHK for years were suddenly ‘laid off’ or had their programs cancelled and were transferred to other departments.  When interviewed, those DJs said that they were not given any explanation for the sudden changes – management only told them that they plan on making the radio station more ‘youth-oriented’, so many of the programs that were targeted to an ‘older’ audience will be ‘revamped’ to meet this need.  Coincidentally, most of the programs that underwent changes were ‘politically-themed’ programs that involved discussions about the current state of HK, so of course, with the highly sensitive political atmosphere in HK currently, there is now the ‘controversy’ about these changes possibly being made to suppress free speech.  Also, according to those who were affected, the changes don’t make sense – most of the hosts that were “transferred” and the programs cut were amongst the station’s highest rated and most popular.   One of the radio show hosts whose program got cancelled said in that Mingpao interview that the reasoning they were given (making things more youth-oriented) doesn’t make sense – his program airs early morning hours each day, during which time most young people aren’t even awake yet and even if they are, most of them don’t listen to traditional radio programs covering those types of topics. 

For the record -- both Metro and RTHK management are claiming that the changes are not directed at anyone in particular and that it is ‘normal course of business’ given the state of the economy currently.  They also claim that all companies (not just radio) are being affected due to current societal trends and change is inevitable so people shouldn’t read so much into things.   Hmmm…well, I personally don’t think so but ok, whatever…I mostly listen to CRHK anyway, so not tremendously concerned about what happens with Metro and RTHK (unless the entertainment department at RTHK is affected, in which case I would be concerned, since I do follow a few a programs there).

So you thought that was it, huh?  Nope, unfortunately not!  Two more ‘issues’ that have been happening lately that I would like to point out, since both impact the entertainment industry in some way…

The ‘big news’ in the Media realm of late is the recent sale of HK newspaper South China Morning Post (SCMP) to Mainland tycoon Jack Ma (aka ‘that Alibaba guy’).  As one of the few English-language papers left in HK, of course there are concerns about the future direction of the paper and what will happen when sensitive topics come up concerning China.   In related news, there’s also the imminent transfer of ownership of One Media, which is the parent company of Ming Pao – rumor has it that Jack Ma is also one of the ‘potential buyers’ in discussions to purchase One Media/Ming Pao, but until it happens, we won’t know who the final buyer will be.  Both of these media outlets report heavily on entertainment news (in addition to regular news of course) and even though it’s too early to say how / if the sale of those 2 media outlets will impact things, no doubt it’s still something worth paying attention to.  For me especially, as a long-time avid reader of Ming Pao magazine and also general news from Ming Pao’s regular news site, I’m definitely interested in the developments surrounding One Media’s sale.

And last but not least – the political turmoil going on in HK currently is starting to have a severe impact on the entertainment industry.  Personally, I’ve always hated politics and have always tried as much as I could to stay away from politically-themed issues – well, the past few years, this has become harder and harder to do given how big a role politics plays nowadays in both society as well as my personal life.  From the HK entertainment industry side of things, I really started paying attention to politics a few years ago with the whole free-to-air license fiasco and all the ‘controversy’ surrounding HKTV’s failure to obtain a license.  Since then, I’ve been much more aware of the impact of politics on entertainment and even though I’m still of the sentiment that entertainment and politics should be separate and one shouldn’t affect the other, I’m not blind to the fact that reality dictates otherwise.  The political struggle and Mainland/HK conflict have always been ‘sensitive issues’ in HK, but in recent years, things have truly gotten out of control, especially ever since the whole Occupy Central thing occurred. 

Recently, there has been a particular political activist (most people who’ve been following events in HK probably know who I’m talking about) who has taken her so-called patriotism (I say ‘so-called’ because IMO, she’s simply using patriotism as an excuse to wreak havoc on society) overboard, utilizing social media platforms to “report” artists from the HK entertainment industry whom she feels is “anti-China” or whom she deems as ‘supporting’ Occupy Central in any way, shape, or form.  Basically she sends out mass messages claiming these artists are “disturbing society’s peace” and asks people to “boycott” them. [Sidenote:  For those who haven’t noticed, most of the people she ‘reports’ are actually not Occupy supporters – she basically takes surface information she reads and twists it to suit her whim]. Any reasonable person (like you and me for instance) would see this woman for what she is – a crazy lunatic who spews nonsense and should just be ignored.  The sad part is that there are enough people out there who actually believe the stuff this woman says and take action based on it, which of course is incredibly stupid -- though I guess HK should be ‘grateful’ that the activist person isn’t a celebrity so it’s easier for entertainment industry people and majority of the public to ignore her – unlike what they have in Taiwan where the crazy activist is actually a former (current?) celebrity who has a certain amount of influence with producers and such (and the stupid producers of those Mainland programs and shows actually listen to the guy too and ‘cancel’ the offending celebrities’ appearances – or take other drastic action – as a result).

In any case, with all the struggles that HK celebrities already have to go through given the dismal state of the entertainment industry currently, it’s a shame that they have to deal with these stupid activists too and worry about whether what they say or do will be somehow misconstrued and have their lives/careers turned upside down in the process. Unfortunately, I don’t see this issue improving any time in the near future (in fact, it’s only going to get worse)….such a bad time to be a ‘celebrity’ in HK (and Taiwan too)!

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Concluding thoughts….

Despite the length of my post (sorry!), the above is actually only a brief summary of a few main issues going on in HK as of late which I’ve read about lately and feel are interrelated in terms of impact to the HK entertainment industry.  By no means is this post meant to be all-inclusive or comprehensive, plus it’s all based on memory, so there might be some things unintentionally left out here and there. 

As always, I welcome you guys to share your thoughts, whether related to this particular post or not (if you feel like just ranting on something random in the comments section, feel free!).

SCMP Editorial: Is TVB’s Jade Solid Gold Top Ten awards the blueprint for universal suffrage?

I actually got a kick out of reading this article so I figured I’d share it with everyone.  Why did I get such a kick out of it, you ask?  Well, because the article echoes my sentiments exactly when it comes to the topic of music awards in HK.  The part I found the most interesting is that the writer of the article compares the JSG voting thing to the universal suffrage debate currently going on in HK right now – I actually didn’t think about it in that light, but when it’s put in that context, the writer is absolutely correct (those who have been following the universal suffrage discussion in the news will probably understand the writer’s point of view). 

Of course, since the article is an editorial, take it for what it’s worth – whether people agree or disagree with the sentiment that the HK music industry is ‘dying’ (or, for some people, it’s actually already ‘dead’), that’s not really the point.  To me, the point of this article is to highlight the pathetic state that HK as a city / nation is in right now…though I guess in a sense, for us die-hard Hong Kongers, this also serves as yet another ‘depressing’ reminder of what our once beloved city has become.  Sad….

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Is TVB’s Jade Solid Gold Top Ten awards the blueprint for universal suffrage? 

Source:  SCMP

Written by Vivienne Chow at SCMP

January is the music awards season in Hong Kong. They were big deals back in the days when Alan Tam Wing-lun was in tense competition with Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing in the 1980s and the Four Heavenly Kings – Andy Lau Tak-wah, Jacky Cheung Hok-yau, Aaron Kwok Fu-shing and Leon Lai Ming – ruled the 1990s. But ever since these super stars went tired of these games, and those who could barely sing the right notes became the new stars in the early 2000s, Canto-pop was dying. Few people care about these music award shows in the past five years or so.

Strange enough, attention to music award shows has resurfaced this year. It’s not just because Eason Chan Yik-shun shocked the crowd when he looked to his iPhone screen for lyrics and gave a performance that was worse than karaoke upon receiving the top awards (best male singer, album, etc) at Commercial Radio’s Ultimate Song Chart Awards Presentation on January 1. At the height of political debates over universal suffrage and Occupy Central, people began to compare these pathetic music awards shows with the political status of Hong Kong.

For those who aren’t familiar with the music awards shows (well, I never attended or covered them as, unlike the Hong Kong Film Awards, which is organised by an industry association and voted by the industry, these music awards have little credibility), Hong Kong has four major music awards organised by four media companies – Metro Broadcasts, Commercial Radio, RTHK and TVB. Every year, Metro Broadcasts hands out over a hundred awards to almost anyone in the showbiz. Commercial Radio’s awards have better reputation as it claims the awards are based on airplay but this means DJs and station management have a high chance to manipulate the results. RTHK...I don’t know what the criteria are. Just like how Hong Kong is run, these are simply no transparency. Perhaps they don’t need to as the awards are just another show, and they don’t have to be accountable to the audience.

TVB’s Jade Solid Gold Best Ten Music Awards Presentation, on the other hand, attempted to be accountable to the public but at the same time, many netizens argued that the TVB show was a preview of what 2017 universal suffrage might look like.

This year Jade Solid Gold followed Miss Hong Kong and The Voice of the Stars to bring public voting on board. Those who pre-registered with TVB online could vote for a number of awards, including most popular male and female singers as well as the song awards.

The game was “universal suffrage” in principle – you were allowed to vote as long as you have registered. But the problem is, many netizens argued, there weren’t that many choices available.

It turned out that only singers who have contracts with TVB (and turn up for the night) were allowed to participate in the race. This meant singers like Eason Chan, who is currently the best loved singer in Hong Kong and has won almost all the big awards at other awards shows, got banished from entering the TVB race. The remaining contracted male singers who fulfilled TVB’s requirements were either too inexperienced irrelevant – seriously I cannot name one single song by Raymond Lam Fung (but he won the most popular singer award with 30 per cent votes). Joey Yung Cho-yee won the most popular singer award for the ninth time in a row with 58,815 votes (well, 85 times more than CY Leung’s 689 votes).

TVB might have played transparent, but the screening process made the awards an unfair race by squeezing out the capable ones who deserved to win. If the Jade Solid Gold award is the blueprint for the 2017 so-called universal suffrage for Chief Executive, be prepared to struggle with choosing among a range of B to C-list candidates if you are stuck in Hong Kong by then.

Meanwhile, G.E.M. Gloria Tang Tsz-kei simply couldn’t care less about the stupid Hong Kong showbiz games and ventured into China. The young Canto-pop singer became an overnight singing sensation on the mainland after appearing in mainland reality show I’m A Singer, winning some 200,000 new followers on her Weibo after the first show. Hong Kong? Forget it. The real fame and cash on mainland matter more to some people.

Chinese University Survey: The Credibility of Hong Kong News Media Outlets Continues to Decline

Happy New Year to all my dear readers!  Hope everyone had a wonderful and relaxing holiday break!  J

One of the New Year’s resolutions I set for myself this year is to do a better job keeping up with and updating this blog, as I realize that I slacked off a bit last year.  My schedule will be just as busy this year as it was last year, but hopefully I’ll be able to set aside more time to work on this blog and finally be able to post up the stuff that I’ve been working on but never found time to finish.  Once again, a sincere THANK YOU to those who continue to support my blog – not only by reading the stuff I post, but also being patient with me when I fail to respond to comments timely (I actually DO read all the comments, but unfortunately I’m not always able to respond as timely as I would like…). I’m also hoping to do better with this in 2014…

Ok, so now that I got that out of the way – on to my first official post of 2014…

I came across the below article yesterday that I really wanted to share with everyone.  Sure, it may not be directly related to the HK entertainment world per se, but technically, the content of the article DOES include entertainment news as well. 

The article recaps a survey conducted by Chinese University in HK in which Hong Kongers were asked to rate the Media outlets in terms of which ones they felt were the most credible.  This survey is actually not a new thing, as it’s done every once in a while and the results are released publicly – it’s just that I never paid a whole lot of attention in the past because the results are generally similar in that the Media outlets that already have a reputation for being credible are usually still at the top of the list.  This year though, I actually took the time to look at the analysis and noticed some very interesting things – a few of which I would like to share below:

.—The survey is broken up into 2 main categories:  HK Media organizations (i.e. TV / radio stations) and News outlets (i.e.: newspapers and other Media that ‘officially’ report news).  Based on the overall scores (for all Media outlets combined), it’s obvious that the credibility of HK Media outlets as a whole has continued its downward trend, as the combined overall scores are way lower than what they were 3 years ago (when the survey was last conducted).  Though I’m not surprised at all with these results, it’s definitely not good news for Hong Kongers, since this means that the Media environment in HK continues to be dismal.

.—In terms of the TV/radio station category, RTHK continues to remain #1 on the list, which I guess shouldn’t come as a surprise, since that radio station IS government-funded and so to some extent, they have a certain ‘social responsibility’ and probably higher standards that they must follow because of it.  The interesting thing is that RTHK has been in the number one spot since 1997 – wow…

Other than RTHK being in the number one spot for the past 16 years, the other thing that sticks out the most to me is that the credibility of both free TV stations in HK (TVB and ATV) has dropped significantly this year.  TVB went from being #2 (a position which they had held since 1997) to #4 (dropping two spots) while ATV went from being #5 (they’ve wavered between #4 and #5 over the past 16 years) to #8 (dropping 3 spots to the very bottom of the list).  Of course, I’m not surprised that TVB and ATV scored poorly, as public opinion of both stations has been on the decline for years…but it looks like this year, the impact was the greatest because their positions dropped so much.  It’s actually kind of pathetic if you ask me….

The rest of the positions in the TV/radio station category didn’t change a whole lot, though CRHK (Commercial Radio) did take the #2 spot this year, which is the highest it’s been for more than a decade.  Looks like their position keeps going up (they went from being #5 back in 2006 to #3 in 2009 and 2010, reaching the #2 spot in 2013), so I guess this means they’re doing something right?

.—In terms of News outlets, South China Morning Post continues to dominate in the #1 spot (that’s good to hear, since that’s where I get a lot of my news articles from…LOL). 

Ming Pao dropped to #3 this year (they’re usually #2 on the list) – though being in the top 3 isn’t bad, the fact that they did drop a bit is concerning, since that’s another outlet where I get the majority of my news from.  Not exactly sure what happened, but hopefully this is only a one-time thing, as I would hate to see them take a downward spiral….

Oriental Daily moved up to #8 this year (they were #9 in 2010 and #11 in 2009), so it looks like they are moving upward once again.  I personally still don’t like the way they put together some of their articles and I still manage to find a lot of ‘sloppy’ reporting when I read their stuff, but the fact that they continue to move up the list shows that they are at least making the effort to be more credible….I guess that should count for something…

Not surprisingly, Apply Daily continues to be near the bottom of the list (they fell to #17 this year, versus being #14 or 15 in previous years).  I’m actually kind of glad to see them so far down the list because it shows that more and more, Hong Kongers are starting to ‘wake up’ and realize just how bad that newspaper is (for those who don’t know, Apply Daily is part of the Next Media empire – need I say more??).

Lastly, Wenweipo and Da Kung Po came in at #19 and #20 respectively (wow, they pretty much dropped to the bottom of the list!).  I remember many years ago, someone had told me that Wenweipo and Da Kung Po were among the ‘more credible’ ones in terms of news media agencies – I guess that’s no longer the case because their credibility is pretty much ‘in the toilet’ as far as this particular poll is concerned (though it doesn’t look like they were ever that high to begin with).  Luckily I don’t get much of my news from either of these 2 outlets, so doesn’t affect me too much.

Full article translated below…

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Chinese University Survey:  The Credibility of Hong Kong News Media Outlets Continues to Decline

Source:  The House News

Translation:  llwy12

Chinese University’s Media and Public Opinion Center recently conducted its survey of local media and news outlets in HK.  The results of the survey indicate that the credibility of HK’s news media outlets overall has continued to decline compared to 3 years ago.  Individually, majority of the media outlets’ average scores are lower than previous years -- amongst those, the drop in HK’s two main free-to-air TV stations’ (TVB and ATV) scores are the most obvious:  TVB dropped from second place (in previous years) to fourth place while ATV dropped 5^th place to last place (#8) on the list.  In terms of news agencies, South China Morning Post continues to take the #1 spot on the list.

Overall, majority of the news outlets’ positions didn’t change a whole lot, which indicates that the fundamental ecology of Hong Kong’s Media as a whole has not changed much over the years.

Chinese University’s survey was conducted between November 27^th , 2013 to December 9^th, 2013 – during this time, 917 HK citizens were interviewed via phone and asked to score the Media outlets – both as a whole and individually -- using a point scale of 1 – 10 points (with 10 being the highest).   Based on the phone calls, citizens gave ‘HK Media as a whole’ a score of 6.18 points, which is 0.18 points lower than the last year the survey was conducted (2010).  In terms of individual scoring, the average score of all Media outlets combined was 5.82 (a 0.22 point drop from 3 years ago).

Amongst the individual Media outlets whose credibility scores dropped this year, the ones who saw the most significant drop in their scores were:  TVB (0.4 point drop), ATV (1.6 point drop), Hong Kong Commercial Daily (0.35 point drop), Apple Daily (0.29 point drop), Wenweipo (0.48 point drop), and DaKung Pao (0.46 point drop).

The Media outlets who saw the highest increase in their scores include:  HK Broadband Network (0.26 point increase), The Standard (0.21 point increase), and The Sun Times (0.16 point increase).

The 10 most credible Media outlets based on the poll are as follows:

Below is the complete list of all Media outlets’ scores: