Entrepreneur may contest geographical constituency in New Territories East or Hong Kong Island
GARY.CHEUNG@SCMP.COM
UPDATED : Wednesday, 11 May, 2016, 1:54pm
Ricky Wong has been fighting to secure a share of the free-to-air television market. Photo: May Tse
Technology and media entrepreneur Ricky Wong Wai-kay, known for his flair for springing surprises on his rivals, is planning to run in the Legislative Council elections in September.
A source familiar with the matter said the Hong Kong Television Network chairman planned to contest a geographical constituency.
“But he has yet to decide which constituency he is going to contest,” the source said.
Wong will elaborate on his plan at a media gathering on Wednesday afternoon.
In October 2013, the Executive Council denied Wong’s HKTV the free-to-air television licence he craved, sparking public uproar and protests.
Wong criticised the ruling as a “decision made in the dark” and launched a judicial review afterwards.
In April last year, the Court of First Instance ruled that the decision was unlawful as Exco had failed to follow the pro-competition 1998 reform – banning preset limits on the number of licensees – when it rejected the HKTV application. This meant that Exco had to reconsider the application.
But Wong’s long-running battle to secure a share of the free-to-air television market suffered another setback last month as the Court of Appeal quashed the Court of First Instance’s ruling.
Wong has launched HKTV as an online entertainment and shopping venture.
In an interview with the Chinese-language publication iMoney in February, the businessman said he had pondered the possibility of running in the Legco election and expected the odds of winning a seat to be “more than 50 per cent”. But he subsequently dropped the idea.
This would not be the first time Wong has gone through a baptism of fire in local elections. He won in the information technology subsector in the Election Committee polls in 2006 and 2011. The panel, dominated by members of the professional and business elite, selected the chief executive in 2007 and 2012.
Wong, who graduated from the Chinese University in 1985, set up City Telecom in 1992. The company provided an alternative IDD service with call-back technology in Hong Kong that brought about the subsequent collapse of the monopoly of the market seven years later.
Wong also briefly served as ATV’s chief executive – for 12 days. At his inaugural press conference after assuming the post in 2008, Wong said that as a Hong Kong person he only knew how to run ATV as a local station, and he would not manage it like state-run China Central Television (CCTV). This reportedly prompted some mainland advertisers to pull their commercials.
http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1943521/hktvs-ricky-wong-plans-run-legco-elections
