[Sing Tao Daily News]

With reports of TVB's decision to revise the contracts for their singers, after Jacky Cheung's open criticisms of the company, TVB's Golden MC Eric Tsang also openly criticised the company without reservation saying that this monopolisation is not a healthy sign. On the other hand, the usually outspoken Jordan Chan was so nervous about accepting an interview from Cable TV that he immediately apologised to TVB for his actions.

Eric Tsang has recently invested HK$11 million into a movie called "Dai Jeung Fu" (A Great Man) that he will both produce and star in along with Jordan Chan, To Man Chak and Lee Lung Yee. Always considered one of the favoured martials of TVB, Eric said: "The situation keeps changing without regulation and it is a matter of supply and demand. I originally signed up as an artiste and appearing in my capacity as artiste on other channels is not a problem." He frowns as he continues: "I think that a station that monopolises for too long is not a healthy sign and I agree that artistes should be allowed to appear on other channels and for there to be healthy competition. In the recent ten years or so, the TV industry has improved and without this comparison, the difference between the channels will be too great. There should be a choice in today's era as China and Taiwan both have other channels available." Should the government address this problem? Eric says: "They have as they released bidding for licences, but there was no competition and it went back on itself, it isn't healthy. (Is TVB complacent in its ratings?) There's no solution to this, to a certain extent the government should fund it, otherwise Hong Kong's position in South East Asia will gradually be lost. I have no idea how to rescue this."

The normally outspoken Jordan Chan muddled himself into a Cable TV interview yesterday and was very nervous when he found out: "Cable interview? I don't know, I didn't see. (There was a Cable reporter beside you.) What should I do? I will call Mr Ho later to say sorry. I am a little contracted singer to TVB, if they terminate my contract because of this, then there's nothing I can do." Jordan says that TVB has had this strategy for many years and no one has ever dared to object to it any attempts to revolutionise this has failed. Responding to Jacky's words, he says: "Let me become a big superstar first, I am just a little singer." Afterwards he went on to ask the reporters to be kind to him: "Because I didn't know that reporter was already doing an interview, I couldn't really shout at him, he is just doing a job."

http://hk.news.yahoo.com/030731/60/tbbk.html