To a foreigner living in Hong Kong, watching local television channels is sometimes a waste of time. It’s a combination of non-English coverage and uninteresting shows. Maybe I am not a businessman and don’t have stock investments so I don’t care about what Bloomberg or Wall Street Journal has to say about earnings, profits and all the business lingo too uninteresting to explore. Maybe I am not into fine dining and luxury travel that I avoid watching shows that feature the rich, famous, and the wannabes.  Or maybe I just don’t have enough time to watch television that every time I flick over the remote, there is nothing interesting besides the News at 7.30.

That is why cable TV apparently is a good business in Hong Kong. In 2003, there are a total of 130 pay TV channels available to Hong Kong subscribers, whose number exceeded 860,000 at the time. No wonder there are more players in the paid television space more than the free-to-air local channels. Cable TV, Now TV and TVB Pay Vision are among those competing for subscribers who wish to watch more entertaining movies, sports coverage or other specialty channels the free ones don’t offer.

Bundled with phone lines and Internet broadband connection, subscription to cable television services has become cheaper and therefore more attractive. Possibly driven by competition, Now TV  for example allows a la carte choice of TV channels which allows greater flexibility and enable subscribers to pay only for channels they wish to watch. In addition to paid channels, free channels (mostly news) are also thrown in as a freebie.

However, for those who are unable or unwilling to hook up with pay TV subscription, local channels are often the only option. I guess the Chinese version of local channels offer more entertainment value, but for its English counterpart, the same can’t be said.

Between ATV and TVB – the two local TV channels – there appears a big disparity. TVB enjoys a huge advantage a) access to TV talents and b) access to advertisers and is accused of unfair competition. ATV was recently dealt a big blow when its chairman and director Linus Cheung resigned as a result of a dispute between two big stakeholders. And now ATV is complaining that it does not have access to entertainers to appear on its shows because they are bound to exclusive contracts with TVB. But even without local talents, ATV seems keen on cutting costs, as it appeared when it cut over 50 jobs and removed US-based programs like Late Show with David Letterman.  If only ATV is handled by folks who are also keen on watching its TV shows.

As a result, locals have little reason to stick with local channels. Instead they have to turn to pay TV to enjoy television viewing using their beautiful LCD TV sets.