| ATV World | |
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| Launched | May 29, 1957 as Rediffusion Television September 30, 1963 as Rediffusion Television English Channel February 1, 1967 as RTV-2 June 1, 1973 launched on free-to-air terrestrial September 24, 1982 as ATV Diamond February 13, 1989 as ATV World December 31, 2007 as aTV6 |
| Owned by | Asia Television Limited |
| Picture format | 576i (SDTV 16:9 in Digital) |
| Website | HKatv.com/World (in English) |
| Availability | |
| Terrestrial | |
| Hong Kong Analogue | Varied by district |
| Hong Kong Digital | Channel 16 |
ATV World, is one of the free-to-air English-language television channels in Hong Kong, the other being its arch-rival TVB Pearl. Its sister station, ATV Home, broadcasts in Cantonese. It is owned and operated by Asia Television Limited (traditional Chinese: 亞洲電視有限公司), and is broadcast from the ATV Enterprises Office at 25-37 Dai Shing Street in Tai Po Industrial Estate in Tai Po, which is in the Tai Po District, in the North East region of Hong Kong's New Territories.
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ATV World's English channel, Rediffusion Television, began as a cable-operated and subscription-based TV service on May 29, 1957. known on-air as Rediffusion Television, and in September 30, 1963, the channel were renamed Rediffusion Television Cantonese Channel and Rediffusion Television English Channel. On February 1, 1967, the channels were renamed RTV-1 and RTV-2 respectively. In June 1, 1973, Rediffusion was granted a free-to-air television broadcasting license for its two television channels. In September 24, 1982, Rediffusion was bought out by the new ATV, and consequently the Cantonese and English-language channel was renamed ATV Gold and ATV Diamond. The channel was again renamed in February 13, 1989, as ATV Home and ATV World.
ATV World broadcasts 24-hour channel with multi-lingual programmes, transmitted in NICAM in analogue version, and multiple AC-3 streams in digital version. While most of programmes are broadcast in English, a few are in either Standard Mandarin, Korean or Japanese without English. It is less popular than English-language rival station rival TVB Pearl, though by a far smaller margin than ATV Home's loss to Cantonese-language rival TVB Jade.
ATV World is one of two English-language channels that broadcast in Hong Kong. It offers a variety of programmes, mostly from the United States, ranging from popular serial dramas and films to documentaries and educational shows. Among the shows it has aired are:
ATV stopped carrying the talk show Late Show with David Letterman (大衛牙擦騷) as of January 1, 2009, but there has been a grassroots movement to bring it back. Arts and sports programming are also offered (e.g. local horse racing, in Chinese 賽馬直擊). Mandarin and Korean programmes are available on ATV World at off-peak hours.
ATV World's flagship English news programme is the "Main News and Weather Report at 7:30" provided under the collective effort of ATV News.
Given its focus on English-language programming in a predominantly Cantonese-speaking market, ATV World carries relatively little advertising and is subsidised by ATV Home. Both free-to-air television companies in Hong Kong are required by the government to provide an English-language service. In the face of competition from TVB Pearl, ATV World has in recent years switched its focus from the provision of drama and movies to documentaries and natural history shows, probably because such programming is less expensive to acquire.
Since the Hong Kong government does not have its own television station, its agency Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) requires the two domestic free television stations to broadcast their programmes and advertisements. One of the well known programmes is Educational Television (ETV) which began in 1971. This follows the Hong Kong education syllabus, serving as a reference for primary and secondary school students of mathematics, the English language, Putonghua, and other school subjects. During the thirty-two week school year, ETV programmes are shown on ATV World from 10:00am. to midday and TVB Pearl from 2:00pm. to 4:00pm. each weekday.
Both ATV World and TVB Pearl are permitted by the Broadcasting Authority of Hong Kong to broadcast non-English programmes for up to 20% of their daily transmission time, outside prime time. In fact, only 12% of TVB Pearl programmes are in languages other than English; 83.6% of those (10% of its total transmission time) are in Mandarin. The remainder include broadcasts in Japanese, Korean, Filipino and Cantonese.
Schedules are published in the South China Morning Post, The Standard and in other daily Hong Kong newspapers, including Chinese newspapers.
ATV World operates its own official website which contains information about the programmes shown by the channel, and a streamed version of ATV News in English.
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