On the occasion of TVB's 50th anniversary, the strong woman in charge of TVB, Run Run Shaw's second wife, Fong Yi-wah, died on November 22 at the age of 83 – which may also mean that an era in the history of Hong Kong television will come to an end.
Fang Yihua. Visual China Infographic
Since Run Run Shaw announced his retirement in 2010, Fong yihua has become the actual manager of the TV station, and for this former famous singer born in Shanghai and famous in Nanyang, her life is the beginning, rise, prosperity, prosperity of Shaw's life, and even the end of the boom and fall.
Fang Yihua debuted as a singer in his early years and released an album. Infographic
When she was young, Fong yihua was a popular Chinese female singer in Nanyang, singing in Hong Kong and Taipei, Singapore, Manila, and even as far as Australia and the United States, which was widely welcomed, but in the late 1960s, she gave up her singing career and came to Hong Kong with Shaw, who was a concubine from Shanghai (at that time, the system of polygamy in Hong Kong was still legal, and audiences familiar with Hong Kong TV dramas should also see similar scenes in some plays), and joined the Shaw Group. And after working within the group for nearly 20 years, he became a member of the board of directors of TVB.
After following Run Run Shaw for many years without a name, with the death of his first wife, Wong Mei Chun, the daughter of a wealthy Singaporean businessman, Fong Yi Wah, who was 66 years old at the time, finally married In 2000, shaw, who was 90 years old in the same year. The more than 30 years from her joining Shaw in 1969 until she finally reconciled with Shaw in 2000 coincided with the history of TVB from its inception in 1967 to the beginning of the 1970s, the prosperity of the 1980s, and the golden years of the 1990s.
Run Run Shaw and Fong Yi Wah. Visual China Infographic
However, in the years as the actual manager of the TV station, Fang Yihua's management style still made the wireless staff quite critical.
Her management style, which is naturally called "vigorous", is naturally positive, but to put it more pejoratively, that is, some subjective assumptions, it is said that all the wireless staff who make her dissatisfied will be quickly invited home by her, which has led to the forced layoff of some news anchors who are popular with Hong Kong TV viewers, and TVB's news programs have been greatly affected in ratings.
At the same time, in some 2010s TV dramas, Fang Yihua also tried to implant a large number of advertisements to meet the needs of advertisers, but this also caused dissatisfaction among TV viewers, because the advertising time was too long, so the regulatory authorities that regulated Hong Kong's television and radio business often received complaints from viewers in this regard.
The Shaw films of Fong Yi Wah and Run Run Shaw have produced many superstars. The picture shows Shaw, Fang Yihua and Jin Chengwu, Liang Chaowei, Tian You, and Wan Ziliang. Infographic
In addition, TVB has a lot of stubborn diseases, in these years have not been improved in the slightest, a while ago there was a rumor that Luo Jialiang because of the ticket reasons, and tvb senior management tore the news, TVB once again because of the door-slamming style, was put on the cusp of the public. As for the low salaries of wireless artists and staff, there has been no improvement in recent years.
However, it should be said that this is also the old man in his eighties, in order to save the TVB that has been declining, some extraordinary means, because as we all know, around 2000, THE TVB has gradually begun to decline, the older generation of senior artists have left the nest to go north, taking root in the more promising film and television market in the mainland, and the new generation of artists has been unable to become the top pillar, and even in the big production dramas, the new generation of small students have been praised. And it never let the discerning audience buy it. At the same time, the competition between television broadcasting as a traditional media and the network representing the power of new media has begun to emerge in that era, and the inherent disadvantages of television broadcasting are doomed to gradually fall behind.
Therefore, as far as possible for TVB to obtain considerable profits, in order to maintain the normal operation of this TV station, may be the first consideration of Ms. Fang Yihua, as a high-level wireless executive. This practice of wooing advertisers to gain business opportunities may be disgusting to TV viewers, but I understand this.
In 2014, Fang Yihua and chen Guoqiang, the current chairman of TVB, attended the TVB Celebration Night. Information Times reporter Xiao Jianning photographed
At the same time, as I once mentioned in the text reviewing tvb's 50 years of storms, Hong Kong's film and television industry as a special international free port, its film and television industry prosperity itself is the product of a specific era, just like Fong Yihua herself, and her husband Run Run Run Shaw are from Shanghai, and even more than half of the actors who have left their names in the history of Hong Kong film and television are from the mainland. When the Hong Kong market has lost its appeal to mainland actors, and the mainland market has an irresistible temptation for the only outstanding Hong Kong artists who have achieved fruitful results, I am afraid that no matter how many measures are taken, it is only the inability to return to the sky like a fine guard.
Whether it is because Fang Yihua's arbitrariness has accelerated the fall of TVB, or in the situation of being unable to reverse the general trend, she has relied on her leadership ability to make the greatest efforts to maintain the last glory of TVB, and perhaps we will have to wait many years before we can make a fair evaluation of Ms. Fang Yihua's achievements in managing TVB.