Many Hong Kong people like to watch TV while having a meal, especially during dinner time. Indeed, the television has become an inseparable part of our lives. But ever since the internet became popular, the importance of television has to an extent been challenged. One reason is that people now tend to rush to chat with their friends online immediately after dinner. Secondly, the quality of many local TV productions has been pretty poor and amateurish so it's no surprise that they have failed to attract audiences.

In recent years, P2P (peer-to-peer) technology has changed people's habits from just sitting still in front of TVs. In the past, if you want to watch your favourite series, you need to turn on the TV at designated times. Today, many people use BT (bit-torrent) to download a TV series so that they can watch it whenever they want. Furthermore, many internet users review episodes of TV series or entertainment shows they have missed either through YouTube or the Mainland video portals.

As the internet gains popularity, TV stations are also pursuing digital plans. Among them are the two free stations, TVB and ATV, both of which have set up channels on YouTube and gained a lot of subscribers.

From what I see though, TVB's YouTube channel is lagging behind ATV's. The reason is simple: ATV's channel provides much better content than TVB's and content is king. Good content gets circulated on the internet and because of this viral effect, the one with better content clearly stands out. ATV has uploaded a variety of its programmes on YouTube for users to review at any time. These include their own productions such as current news review and talk shows with local celebrities.

As for TVB, the majority of its content is just promotional clips and previews. If it continues in this way, it might as well close down its channel for good. TVB has actually produced programmes such as entertainment news, news features and even music programmes, why doesn't it upload them onto YouTube? Is it being stingy and concerned that it would be ripped off if more people viewed its productions online? Or has it failed to realise the effectiveness of the internet?

In the digital era, ATV has made a very wise move in uploading a large number of its clips online. If users can watch these programmes at any time on YouTube, why would BT be necessary? After all, as long as there is good content, people and traffic will congregate in various sharing and interactive activities.

By Jansen

*Translation from Chinese article.