August 06, 2004

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The Albert Cheng mess

Usually HK Magazine (actually a weekly newspaper) is good for one thing: the weekly fix of Savage Love (this week's is particularly good). However their editorial on the Albert Cheng story (details here and today's latest here) is worth reproducing in full because it is accurate and sarcastic all at the same time:

At the top of the hour, this just in...more developments in the ongoing struggle between Commercial Radio (CR) chief executive Winnie Yu and I-bar-you-listen talk show host Albert Cheng. All of this might have started years back when Cheng, who hosted "Teacup in a Storm" radio talk show, was inexplicably chopped for reasons unknown. Once he was stitched up, he said something about surviving to go back on the air, which he did, until recently, that is, when three of CR's talk show hosts resigned, including I-bark-you-listen Cheng, citing mysterious threats from the Mainland. Even then, most of us wouldn't really care, except that this came on the heels of Beijing's recent declarations about patriotism which forced everyone to think that some radio hosts resigning really does mean the end of press freedom as we know it. The jury's still out on that one, but before we even had time to go to the bathroom, I-bark-you-listen Cheng suddenly says he's quitting because CR chief Yu says that he had to choose between being a radio host or running for LegCo - this coming from the woman who used to maintian a major job at an Internet provider company while being the director of a radio station at the same time. So he resigned because otherwise CR said they were going to terminate his contract, then the former I-bar-you-listen talk show host Cheng said that he was going to go complain to the ICAC, who were just the subject of their own freedom of the press headlines when they barged into seven newspapers and conducted a raid. Anyway, that's another story. So Cheng thought he was in the right because his talk show was number one for nine years [doesn't say much for HK radio - Ed.], but before he could do all this, CR chief exec Yu suddenly decides that she's going to have a rational format - whatever that means - then she fires her COO and decides she'll direct everything again. Then, just when people thought that Cheng was using all the headlines for future political gain and Yu herself was just enjoying the headlines the station was getting, overnight CR says that it will honour their contract with Cheng, who then announced he will run for Legco in Kowloon East, THEN go back on air. So as of this moment, CR, the new rational station, will have the former I-bark-you-listen emotional host Cheng reinstated as talk show host, who will also run for Legco, which CR didn't want before but now seems OK with, and we'll be sure to read more headlines about Yu and the I-bark-you-listen talk show host Albert Cheng. But hold that thought because by the time this gets to you, our rational explanation of the irrational goings on at the station could change...
Precisely.
posted by Simon on 08.06.04 at 02:58 PM in the




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