Hong Kong's television history began with the launch of Rediffusion Television on 29 May 1957. RTV started off as a cable subscription service but became a free-to-air broadcaster in 1973, with Cantonese and English channels. In April 2016the Executive Council decided not to renew ATV's broadcast licence and its channels closed. Television Broadcasts Limited was the territory's first free-to-air commercial station and remains the predominant TV broadcaster today with multiple Cantonese channels and one English channel, on analogue and digital. A short-lived network, known as Commercial Television, opened in 1975 and operated for about three years until its bankruptcy. Government ownedRadio Television Hong Kong starting making TV programmes in 1976 - to be aired on TVB and ATV and later on HKCTV and Now TV. In 2016, RTHK took over the analogue frequency of ATV and now also has its own digital channels HKTVE, commonly known as ViuTV started broadcasting in 2016, on digital only, with a Cantonese channel and an English channel. In May 2017, Fantastic Television started digital free-to-air broadcasting, but after a year they moved their content to HKCTV. There is also an Internet television and VOD channel called Hong Kong Television Network which was launched in 2014 and can be viewed on smart TVs, set-top boxes, personal computers, smartphones and tablet computers.
Subscription networks
Cable TV Hong Kong : controlled by Wharf Holdings, operates over 100 channels with programmes broadcast in English, Cantonese, Putonghua and other languages.
Now TV : provides 25 free channels and over 200 pay channels with programmes broadcast in English language, Cantonese, Putonghua, Japanese and Korean, Pinoy, French and Indian.
Hong Kong's soap drama, comedy series and variety show productions reach mass audiences throughout the Cantonese-speaking, and even Mandarin-speaking, world.
Regulatory control
Television in Hong Kong is not subject to China's regulatory or 'content' control and is under the purview of the Communications Authority in Hong Kong.
Digital terrestrial television
Hong Kong was not required to follow China's DTT standard, but the Hong Kong government nevertheless opted to use DMB-T/H as the digital terrestrial television broadcast standard in 2004. The official start of DTT broadcasting was at 7pm on 31 December 2007 as the first digital TV signal transmitter in Tsz Wan Shan went online. In October 2007, both broadcasting companies agreed to use the MPEG2 video standard for broadcasting free-to-air channels ; the H.264 video codec was implemented for all DTT-only channels. For the audio codec, usual DTMB set-top boxes would support MPEG-1 Audio Layer II for stereo audio tracks, and Dolby AC-3 for 5.1 surround sound audio tracks. The official specification defines standard-definition broadcasting as 576i at 50 fields per second and high-definition broadcasting in 720p at 50 Hz or 1080i at 50 Hz. All major transmitters were completed by 2008, covering at least 75 percent of the Hong Kong population. The current coverage reaches 99% of the population. Digital switchover will take place on 1 December 2020, postponed from the originally planned date in 2015.
