Entity Type: Domestic Media Company

HOY TV (開電視), operated by i-CABLE HOY Limited under parent company i-Cable Communications Limited, is a free-to-air Cantonese-language television channel in Hong Kong. The channel began broadcasting on May 14, 2017, under the name Fantastic TV Chinese Channel, later renamed Hong Kong Open TV and then HOY TV in 2022. New World Development chairman Henry Cheng Kar-shun took control of i-Cable Communications in 2021, paying HK$316.4 million to acquire a majority stake in the company’s controlling shareholder, Forever Top (Asia) Limited. In 2023, i-Cable surrendered its pay-television license and shifted its business to free-to-air broadcasting, around the same period Hong Kong’s Communications Authority introduced new licensing rules requiring HOY TV and other free-to-air broadcasters to air at least 30 minutes of national education and national security law content weekly. HOY TV has also participated in the Hong Kong Police Force’s national security messaging efforts as one of three broadcasters that rebroadcast the force’s “Offbeat 360” video series.

Television Broadcasts Limited (電視廣播有限公司), known as TVB, was first established on November 19, 1967, as Hong Kong’s first wireless commercial television station, and today produces terrestrial broadcasting, drama, and digital media content distributed across mainland China and more than 40 other countries. The company is listed on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong, trading under stock code 00511. TVB’s largest shareholder, Young Lion Holdings Limited, holds a 25 percent stake in the company through its subsidiary Shaw Brothers Limited, a stake jointly held under an agreement between Kenneth Hsu Kin and Li Ruigang (黎瑞剛), founder of mainland Chinese investment firm China Media Capital, according to TVB’s 2024 Annual Report. In May 2025, TVB’s Executive Chairman Thomas Hui To agreed to acquire Hsu’s shares in Young Lion Holdings, and Hsu resigned as a non-executive director, according to the South China Morning Post. Li remains a non-executive director on TVB’s board. TVB’s mainland China operations, which co-produce dramas and distribute programming to mainland broadcasters and streaming platforms, accounted for 26 percent of the company’s total revenue in 2024, according to the annual report for that year.

i-CABLE Communications Limited (有線寬頻通訊有限公司) is a publicly listed Hong Kong media and telecommunications holding company, incorporated in 1999 above the pay-television operator Hong Kong Cable Television, which began broadcasting in 1993. The group today operates a digital terrestrial television network under the “HOY” brand, comprising channels HOY 76, HOY 77 and HOY 78, alongside a broadband service reaching more than two million households. Its news operations were historically known for adversarial journalism, including the investigative program News Lancet. That reputation shifted in December 2020, when the company fired at least 40 newsroom staff in a single morning, including the entire News Lancet team, prompting further resignations and, according to Radio Free Asia, concerns that the network was taking direction from Beijing’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong. i-CABLE is controlled by Forever Top (Asia) Limited, which itself came under the control of New World Development chairman Henry Cheng Kar-shun in 2021. Cheng has served as a Standing Committee member of the Twelfth Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a national political advisory body under the Chinese Communist Party.