TVB, the biggest broadcaster in Hong Kong, is in hot water after swapping a program that poked fun at Xi Jinping from prime time to a graveyard slot during the president’s visit last week.
RTHK, which produces satirical current affairs program Headliner, announced today that it had filed an official complaint with the Communications Authority over the change, which reportedly took place just minutes before the show’s scheduled 6pm slot.
Last Friday’s episode of Headliner made fun of Xi, then-Chief Executive CY Leung, and made repeated references to jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who was recently released on medical parole due to late-stage liver cancer.
Instead of Headliner, TVB viewers were “treated” to footage of Xi’s visit to Hong Kong and an unrelated feng shui program. The satirical show was then aired at 12:30am on Saturday, on one of TVB’s less popular channels.
RTHK says it was not notified about the change and did not agree to it beforehand, and expressed “awful displeasure” about the incident in a letter to TVB.
It seems like Friday night was pretty darn eventful for TVB, as the broadcaster also made headlines over a gaffe that occurred during its broadcast of the 20th handover gala, which saw the pomp and circumstance suddenly cut to a two-second shot of a woman smiling broadly with her hands up for no discernible reason.
