Opinion | Hong Kong remains disconnected from a digital lifestyle befitting a modern city
- A long overdue move to liberalise the city’s archaic broadcasting rules must be only the first step towards encouraging industry players to invest and innovate
- Hong Kong needs an ecosystem that fully supports a digital lifestyle, where people can seamlessly socialise, shop and be entertained
Those of us who stayed in over the long weekend will no doubt have noticed the adverts for “myTV Gold”, TVB’s online pay TV platform – that is, those of us who still watch TVB.
According to a survey by Nielsen, live television viewing is still predominant among Hong Kong viewers. But they are also consuming content across a spectrum of devices and platforms, particularly the so-called post-80s generations.
Broadcasters around the world have been trying to develop online platforms to diversify their offerings. The BBC launched its internet streaming service BBC iPlayer back in 2007, and HBO created its video-on-demand service HBO Go in 2010. Large broadcasters even formed joint ventures to create online services, such as POOQ by Korea’s KBS, MBC and SBS (2012), and BritBox by BBC and ITV (2017).
TVB, likewise, launched myTV Super back in 2016 – its own (paid) over-the-top (OTT) platform targeting local audiences. Later that year, it rolled out TVB Anywhere, a similar platform aimed at overseas Chinese communities. And then an upgraded myTV Gold platform was introduced last year, to feature early releases of the latest TVB dramas as well as OTT originals.
Despite TVB’s efforts and the growing subscription figures (myTV Super had 7.3 million subscribers as of March 2019, a 26 per cent increase from the 5.6 million recorded a year earlier), none of their initiatives have generated much enthusiasm.
