Competition and Development
HKCTV is the second subscription-based TV station in Hong Kong apart from the 1957 Rediffusion Television (RTV). Before the liberalisation of the pay-TV market, the market was dominated by HKCTV and iTV, previously a subsidiary of Cable & Wireless HKT, currently owned by PCCW. In 1999, the HKSAR Government invited bids to open up the Pay TV market so as to give consumers more choices. The pay-TV market was officially opened for bid in early July 2000, leading to its expeditious development. Its opening also led to the increase in competitions for programming and market shares, as evidenced in the various extensive use of advertising and propaganda.
According to the Hong Kong Annual Reports 2003- Telecommunications, there were four domestic pay television programme service licensees in Hong Kong:
- Hong Kong Cable Television Limited (HKCTV)
- now TV, operated by PCCW VOD Limited (PCCW VOD)
- TVB Pay Vision, operated by Television Broadcast Company (TVB), and distributed through now TV and Hutchison Global Communications (HGC)
- HKBN bbTV, operated by HKBN, an Internet Service Provider of Hong Kong.
By the end of 2003, a total of 130 pay TV channels have become available in Hong Kong. The total number of subscribers has exceeded 860,000. With the entry of new competitors such as NOW Broadband TV and TVB Pay Vision, increasing competition is expected in the future Pay-TV market.
Comparatively, HKCTV would have a lower flexibility if compared to its new competitor NOW Broadband TV. This is because HKCTV sells its channels and services to its subscribers through fix-priced packages and the preset and prepaid subscription packages determine the viewers' choice of programmes. On the other hand, NOW Broadband TV's subscribers enjoy greater flexibility in choosing which channels to watch at will on a monthly pay-per-view basis without a need of prior application to the company. Thus, the contract period is shorter and the cost is minimised for users who might not be interested in all the programmes in the offered package. Moreover, subscribers to PCCW's Netvigator broadband services would enjoy certain free trial channels along with their internet service subscription. In this sense, along with the overlapping of numerous incorporated international channels, HKCTV has a less privileged stand in competition since all of its services are only available to its pay-television service subscribers.
Read more about this topic: Cable TV Hong Kong
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