ATV Home


ATV Home was a free-to-air Cantonese television channel in Hong Kong, owned and operated by Asia Television. It was formed in September 1963 as a result of the split of the bilingual Rediffusion Television subscription service into dedicated Cantonese and English-language services. In 1969, the broadcaster was granted a license for over-the-air broadcasting.
Facing heavy competition from its free-to-air competitor TVB Jade, a change in ownership in 2010 and an attempt to cut back on dramas in favour of more current affairs, news, and talk programming resulted in further financial losses and internal conflicts. Owing to ATV's deterioration and other issues, on 31 March 2015 ATV's over-the-air broadcasting license was revoked effective 2 April 2016; the channel signed off shortly before midnight on 1 April 2016, and was replaced on analogue transmission by RTHK 31.

History

Rediffusion Television

ATV Home, in addition to Asia Television's history, traces back to Rediffusion Television, which was Hong Kong's first television service. The service launched on 29 May 1957, and a subscription fee of HK$25 was required to watch programming, which was considered to be expensive at the time.
On 30 September 1963, Rediffusion launched its Cantonese service, and the channel was christened "Rediffusion Television Cantonese Channel". This would lay the groundwork for what will eventually become ATV Home.
On 1 February 1967, the channel was renamed "RTV-1".
On 10 November 1969, Rediffusion was granted a free-to-air television broadcasting license for RTV-1, in addition to its English sister channel RTV-2. However, RTV was beaten to launch by a competitor, Television Broadcasts Limited. This late arrival would have a major negative impact on new service's viewership, up until its eventual demise in 2016.

Asia Television

On 24 September 1982, Rediffusion Television was bought out by a locally owned enterprise called Far East Group. The new owner renamed Rediffusion to Asia Television, and consequently, the channel was renamed "ATV Cantonese".
On 2 February 1987, the channel was again renamed, to "ATV Gold".
Far East Group eventually sold its ATV holdings to local conglomerate Lai Sun Group, and the channel was renamed on 13 February 1989, to "ATV Home". In 2015, former ATV executive Selina Chow revealed that the station's new name was supposed to be "ATV Hong Kong", but the station was forced to scrap the name, in favor of ATV Home, after Secretary for Administrative Services and Information Peter Tsao opposed the name.

Competitive disadvantage

Due to its relatively late arrival as a free-to-air Cantonese-language TV station, lesser known actors and lower operating budgets, ATV Home struggled to compete with its Cantonese rival TVB Jade. While the station's programs did, on occasions, lowered TVB's ratings, TVB always managed to eventually regain the lost ratings.

Programming

Although less popular or numerous than TVB drama series, ATV-produced dramas are still well received. Some have attained popular and critical acclaim, such as Crocodile Tears, Fatherland, The Legendary Fok, Central Affairs I and II and Reincarnated. Recent productions of note include The Pride of Chao Zhou, Who is the Winner?, King of the Gambler and The Good Old Days.
In recent years ATV has created and hosted certain large-scale award shows, the most well-known of which would probably be The Annual Most Popular TV Commercial Awards.
Other 'infotainment' programmes like Stories From Afar are ranked highly by public reviews, such as the Appreciation Index Survey Best Television Awards.
Some ATV programmes, such as the entertainment news show Hong Kong Today and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, have proven to be particularly popular, prompting their rival TVB to offer similar shows, such as Focus On Focus and Weakest Link, respectively.

Well-known programmes

A list of drama series produced by Asia Television was import programmes by RCTI: