Next Weekly ver: 1011
2009/7/23
Open Warfare between 2 TVB executives (Tsang vs Lok) over Steven Ma, ultimately forcing Stephen Chan's hand to resolve their discord; Stephen supports Steven and his advocate, Catherine Tsang, over Virginia Lok.
It has long ben widely rumored that the two top TVB executives, Virginia Lok and Catherine Tsang, are at odds with each other underneath their cordial appearance. Lately their discord is out in the open for all to see, even to the point of being factious; explicitly taking a stance of it’s you or me to the bitter end. As to the cause of this contention, allegedly Ms. Lok had vocally criticized that Ms. Tsang’s prized general, Steven Ma’s image ‘can’t enter homes’ (interpretation: Steven has no audience appeal or draw) hence, had repeatedly obstructed his contract renewal with TVB. This point of contention caused the two top female executives to publicly open fire at each other, stirring the big wok during a meeting. Stephen Chan, as the outsider, was ultimately forced to resolve their dispute.
Sacrificing a Prized General.
In recent years, there has been a shortage of siu sang and fan da in TVB. Furthermore, many of its artistes upon termination of their contracts, would jump ship onto greener pastures elsewhere, thereby greatly reducing the already increasingly meager human resources in the artistes management sector, TVB’s most profitable department. As to the group of artistes who possess rating power and whose contract renewals are pending or upcoming such as: Bowie Lam, Roger Kwok, Steven Ma, Maggie Cheung, Sheren Tang, Wong Hei and Ada Choi; it can be said that TVB will definitely want to retain them. But after a lapse of half year, only Bowie Lam and Roger Kwok have renewed their contracts. This situation had greatly alarmed board member, Mona Fong. As the Director of Artiste Resources, Ms. Lok was responsible for stock replenishment, consequently, her right-hand woman, Manager of Artistes Development, Ms. Chan (陳佩華) had to be sacrificed for the flap when she took the blame by resigning last month.
To prevent further outflow of talents, allegedly earlier on, a meeting was held with various TVB departments to discuss the contract renewal crisis. In the meeting, the Director of Series Production, Ms. Catherine Tsang, laid out the contract predicament of her prized general, Steven Ma, whose contract would expire in early July. However, the discussion degenerated into an acrimonious verbal war between the two top executives.
Sacrificing a Prized General.
In recent years, there has been a shortage of siu sang and fan da in TVB. Furthermore, many of its artistes upon termination of their contracts, would jump ship onto greener pastures elsewhere, thereby greatly reducing the already increasingly meager human resources in the artistes management sector, TVB’s most profitable department. As to the group of artistes who possess rating power and whose contract renewals are pending or upcoming such as: Bowie Lam, Roger Kwok, Steven Ma, Maggie Cheung, Sheren Tang, Wong Hei and Ada Choi; it can be said that TVB will definitely want to retain them. But after a lapse of half year, only Bowie Lam and Roger Kwok have renewed their contracts. This situation had greatly alarmed board member, Mona Fong. As the Director of Artiste Resources, Ms. Lok was responsible for stock replenishment, consequently, her right-hand woman, Manager of Artistes Development, Ms. Chan (陳佩華) had to be sacrificed for the flap when she took the blame by resigning last month.
To prevent further outflow of talents, allegedly earlier on, a meeting was held with various TVB departments to discuss the contract renewal crisis. In the meeting, the Director of Series Production, Ms. Catherine Tsang, laid out the contract predicament of her prized general, Steven Ma, whose contract would expire in early July. However, the discussion degenerated into an acrimonious verbal war between the two top executives.
