Over 400 employees from ATV (Asia Television) either have been sacked, or are due to lose their jobs after court-appointed liquidators Deloitte were given the go-ahead to shut the struggling station down.
SCMP reports that accounting firm Deloitte had handed out termination letters to over 250 members of staff at ATV’s Tai Po headquarters on Monday, but were delayed from finalising the move until yesterday, after the station’s closure was delayed twice by court orders.
Deloitte China’s southern region managing partner, Derek Lai, told the SCMP that ATV required HKD8 million to stay alive until the expiration of its free-to-air licence on April 1. ATV’s mainland Chinese investor, Si Rongbin, reportedly failed to provide the cash, leading to Deloitte’s bid to liquidate the ailing broadcaster.
Despite the station’s closure, Lai said that technical details had yet to be ironed out, and could not confirm when ATV would be actually taken off the air.
RTHK, which will take over ATV’s channel, will reportedly not have analogue programming ready for broadcast before March 10.
Jane He, Si’s representative, said Deloitte’s decision to close the station down was made “abruptly and violently”, and denied that the station’s funds had run dry, instead countering that Si simply did not trust the liquidators with the money.
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