TVB Entertainment News

TVB and HKRIA (Big 4 labels' organization) royalty disputes have been going on for nearly a year. Initially, there was hope with Stephen Chan's return to TVB as the General Manager. However, it was rumored that because TVB boss (Mona Fong) was not satisfied with someone suggesting the singers under Big 4 were allowed to go on other TV stations, she refused to sign the agreement. According to the most result news, both sides have not come to a new agreement yet, tonight at the Metro Radio Hits Music Awards Presentation, initially TVB's J2 channel was going to broadcast the show live, but now they can only broadcast cut footage of the show. Any footage showing the Big 4 singers appearance will be cut out and cannot be broadcast.

Metro Radio & Chik Chak same fate

According to news, TVB called up Metro Radio suggesting that they are going to broadcast the awards show live on J2 channel was the first step of breaking the ice, but now the goal cannot be reached. It was understood that HKRIA had a deadline for TVB to sign the agreement by 5pm the day before Metro's music awards. Since the TVB executives were in a meeting with Mona Fong on Tuesday, they were too busy to respond and resulted in both sides without an agreement. TVB will not be able to broadcast the Big 4 singers segments during both Metro Radio Hits Music Awards and the Chik Chak's Ultimate Song Music Awards. Only cut footage are able to be broadcast.

HKRIA issues statement yesterday

The RTHK Top 10 Music Awards will be held on January 7, 2011. It was understood that because TVB and HKRIA's royalty issues, TVB cannot broadcast the show. Also, RTHK stopped participating in the "Four Station Media Award", clearly refusing to let TVB broadcast their show. Then there is EEG and East Asia who refuses to take part in RTHK's music awards, which miserbly turned into 'double rejection' for RTHK.

[Oriental Daily] contacted Stephen Chan in regards to the broadcasting issues. He admitted that TVB has not come to an agreement with HKRIA: "It is a problem legally and in principle. Both sides are working hard on looking over the documents, time is required to handle the situation. Absolutely can we not explain it in the short period, so the awards ceremony will be like how it is last year. We can only broadcast what is recorded and cannot do a live broadcast." He clarified that it is only technical difficulties with the legal documents, and is not related to the singers' contracts.

Stephen expressed that yesterday TVB received HKRIA's legal statement, because both sides have not come to an agreement, TVB has no copyright of the Big 4 singers and cannot broadcast their footage. When asked if they are refusing to broadcast RTHK's music awards? He said: "I believe to be able to broadcast RTHK Top 10 Music Awards successfully is a going to be a challenge. It is possible we are not going to broadcast it because EEG and East Asia singers aren't attending, it is going to be difficult to broadcast it."

As for HKRIA, yesterday they issued a statement stating that thinking in the benefit of Music Fans, they have tried several times to make temporary agreement and concessions, both sides have consensus over the last several weeks of discussing, but they still need to resolve the technical issues along with meeting TVB's requirements.