As I See It | The death of a duopoly: who wins and who loses after ATV's spectacular fall and TVB's rise

Hongkongers are used to duopolies. Every day, citizens choose blissfully between Wellcome and ParknShop, Café de Coral and Fairwood, Fortress and Broadway, oblivious and powerless to the glaring absence of choice.

This false sense of consumer freedom is legitimised by the government’s corporate propaganda telling us that too many options can lead to confusion, cutthroat competition and an economic apocalypse.

Nowhere is this phenomenon more pronounced than in the realm of free-to-air television – broadcasting that requires no paid subscription and commands high viewership especially among the low income demographics.

Our television dial can only toggle between the complacent TVB and the languishing ATV, two unequal adversaries that nowadays offer numb viewers the Hobson’s choice between bad programming and the unwatchable.

For months, ATV – the world’s first Chinese-language television station – has been dying a slow and torturous death. Its financial troubles first surfaced last autumn when staff complained about unpaid wages.

Senior management resorted to stalling tactics and made up stories about new funding and white knights. And when desperate times called for desperate measures, the cash-strapped broadcaster cut its programming to the bone, liquidated assets from copyrights to camera equipment, and even begged key shareholders to offer loans to employees in lieu of pay.