After Myolie Wu (胡杏兒), Kate Tsui (徐子珊), Aimee Chan (陳茵微), Ron Ng (吳卓羲), and more, have decided to not renew their TVB contracts, it is said that many other TVB artistes will soon follow suit. This TVB “escape trend” is taking over the headlines of many gossip magazines, thus giving rise to rumors that the great station has been demanding its managed artistes to extend their contracts for a longer period of time. Kenneth Ma (馬國明) is rumored to be one of the TVB artistes who have refused to extend his contract for another five years. Because of this, reports are claiming that Kenneth has been frozen by TVB; his starring drama Rouge Emperor <流氓皇帝>, which was originally slated to air sometime this August, is still awaiting for release. As Kenneth does not have any headlining dramas airing this year, he is not nominated for major awards at year-end award ceremonies, thus losing out the race for TV King. Although he is currently filming the TVB mini movie A Time of Love II <愛情來的時候II> with Charmaine Sheh (佘詩曼), it is a job that was already assigned to him last year. With TVB executive Sandy Yu (余詠珊) holding more influence in managerial matters, many of TVB’s older generation of promoted stars, including Kenneth, are losing influence. Allegedly Virginia Lok (樂易玲), who now looks over Shaw Brothers, has asked Wong Cho Lam (王祖藍) to chat with Kenneth about future collaborations. A mainland Chinese company has also approached Kenneth. But rumors of Kenneth being frozen by TVB was partially debunked when he attended a press conference for the upcoming TVB police procedural drama ICAC Investigators 2016 <廉政行動2016>. Asking if he has renewed his contract, which is why he is cast in ICAC, Kenneth clarified, “There is still some time left on my TVB contract. We haven’t really talked about renewal yet.” Mentioning that TVB has been asking artistes to extend their contracts for a longer period of time, Kenneth said, “Only some, not all. We all have different contracts. I have not extended my contract yet. We had preliminary discussions, but there is still time left in my contract period. There are colleagues who have contracts that will be ending sooner, so maybe the company sees them as a priority.” Rumors say that TVB called artistes into a room and gave three seconds to make the decision about renewing their contract. Kenneth laughed and said, “Well, that never happened to me. Maybe the company doesn’t think I’m very important! I don’t know if others had, but I definitely have not.” Creds: Ming Pao
