Television in Hong Kong

Television in Hong Kong came into being during the British Hong Kong period. At present, it has two commercial broadcast television networks, TVB, and HKTVE, with a third one Fantastic TV upcoming in 2017; while RTHK is Hong Kong's public broadcaster .

Rediffusion Television (RTV), launched on 29 May 1957, is Hong Kong's first commercial television network, later renamed as Asia Television (ATV). While it had been run as a cable subscription service for almost two decades, RTV was prompted to switch to terrestrial few years after the launch of Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) in 1967, the territory's first free-to-air commercial station and remains the predominant TV station in the territory. In 1976, Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) also joined the TV scene (radio from 1949). All stations provide Cantonese and English services.

There was a short-lived network called Commercial Television that opened in 1975, but it went into bankruptcy merely after three years in running (see 1970s in Hong Kong). The binary oligarchy of free television in Hong Kong has since been unchanged.

In April 2016, following the Executive Council's decision not to renew ATV's broadcast licence over multiple controversies, HKTVE, commonly known as ViuTV, began its service and became the territory's only alternative to TVB. RTHK, the public broadcaster, took over the analogue frequency of ATV and now also runs its own digital channels. Before this arrangement, RTHK programmes were only aired on TVB, ATV and Cable TV, a subscription network, in certain prime time slots.

...
Wikipedia