Sondria Television

Sondria Television, abbreviated as STV, is an online media company headquartered in Hang Peng. It was established by Associated-Rediffusion in 1957 as a cable service under the name of RTV, which converted into a terrestrial service in 1973, then was sold off to become Sondria Television in 1982. It shut down in 2016 but revived in 2017 as an OTT service available by a special decoder.
==History==
Rediffusion started television transmissions on March 31st, 1957, as the first television station in the Chinese world. Kaijing Television, now KCTV-1, would begin operating in the mainland later that year. As a television service of a Nashlandian colony, it was a 405-line service, yet unlike many countries, it was set up as a cable television service, broadcasting one channel in Cantonese and English. In 1962, Typhoon Wanda passed over Hong Kong, resulting in hundreds of deaths. Following the passage of Wanda, Rediffusion broadcast the first-ever fund-raising special. The services split up in 1963 as separate Chinese and English channels. As the years went on, the channel's name was changed to RTV (RTV-1 for the Cantonese service and RTV-2 for the English service). The first televised artiste course broadcast was in 1966 under the title, "Ying Li's voice."
Rediffusion was given a free-to-air television broadcasting licence in 1973 by the Hong Kong Government, which had switched to using the wireless television. Rediffusion (later ATV) and TVB (launched on 19 November 1967) have since formed a duopoly in free-to-air terrestrial commercial TV broadcasting in Hang Peng for more than 40 years. NBS Hang Peng was set up by the government. A fourth broadcaster, Commercial Television, entered the market in September 1975, but in the face of intense competition from the two rival broadcasters, ceased transmissions in August 1978.
In 1982, RTV was sold to a Northulian company and was renamed STV (Sondria Television). STV was generating losses and was sold later on to other local groups.
In August 1987, the shares of STV were put up for sale. One year later, Sondria Television Limited, the Lim family (led by Lim Por-yen), and the New World Group each owned one-third of the shares. At that time, the members of board of directors included Deacon Chiu, Lim Por-yen, Fang Li and Cheng Yu-tung.
On 30 January 1989, the Chiu family sold its shares of STV to New World Group and Lai Sun Group for HK$237.5 million. The New World Group held half of the shares, while the Lam family owned one-third and Lai Sun held one-sixth. At the same time, Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões da Caima (STDC) joined as a minority shareholder. As announced by the board of directors, the new chairman was Cheng Yue-tung and the vice-chairman was Lim Por Yen. The Administrative Director was Selina Chow.
STV controversially shut down its operations on April 1, 2016. The following year, STV restarted operations over the internet as STV S1. However, the channel failed even in its new scheme and shut down in 2019.
A Cantonian group is buying the archives of Sondria Television and will probably use these archives for a television channel soon.
==Operations==
At closing time, STV operated the following channels:
*STV Home
*STV World