After 2000, ATV faced a gradual decline in production quality and viewership, as well as financial difficulties—a process hastened under the leadership of Wang Zheng.

Rediffusion (later ATV) and TVB (launched on 19 November 1967) have since formed a duopoly in free-to-air terrestrial TV broadcasting in Hong Kong for more than 40 years.

[12] The company that operated ATV frequently recorded losses, and in January 1984, following the withdrawal of the Australian enterprise, the Chiu family bought all of the shares.

At that time, the members of the board of directors included Deacon Chiu, Lim Por-yen, Fang Li and Cheng Yu-tung.

[13] In June 2007, Chan, along with Liu Changle (劉長樂), chairman of Phoenix Satellite Television Holdings Limited, established a company that later bought most of ATV's shares.

[15] In early 2009, Taiwanese billionaire Tsai Eng-Meng signed a preliminary agreement to become a key shareholder of Alnery, a company that controls 47.58% of ATV.

[19] In its final years, viewing figures for ATV Home had fallen sharply, as the TV station has begun to cater more to the interests of the mainland Chinese audience, who could now legally receive the channel.

[citation needed] In the Pearl River Delta area of China, ATV used to enjoy a 70% ratings share in the late 90s, largely due to rebroadcasting rights.

[citation needed] In 2010, Chinese property businessman Wang Zheng became known as ATV's "major shareholder" and began to exercise actual control over the board of directors when his relative-in-law Wong Ben Koon, who is a Hong Kong resident, purchased 52% of ATV's shares from Cha's brothers and other shareholders, although Wang himself was not a member of the board.

[21] On 6 July 2011, ATV News falsely reported the death of Jiang Zemin, former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.

[23] In 2014, the court ruled in Tsai's favour that Wang Zheng was responsible for ATV's business failure, and appointed Deloitte to seek a white knight to take over Wong Ben-koon's controlling shares.

[25] By early January, the company was still owing the balance of salaries outstanding since November, and there were several terminations and redundancies as a result of the operating difficulties.

ATV and its executive director Ip Ka-po received 34 prosecution notices from the Labour Department concerning unpaid wages from July through September.

[31][32] On 7 February 2016, after over 200 employees resigned from the company in the previous week, ATV was forced to suspend its news programming due to a lack of staff.

The Communications Authority threatened to fine ATV over the suspension, as it violated conditions of its licence requiring the daily broadcast of the 15-minute evening newscasts in Cantonese and English.

On 22 February 2016, the Communications Authority announced that it would issue a 30-day suspension to ATV effective April 2016 for violating licence conditions relating to news programming and missed license fee payments.

[33][34] On 24 February 2016, the High Court of Hong Kong appointed the firm Deloitte to serve as a provisional liquidator for ATV's assets.

RTHK TV 31 and TV33 (CGTN Documentary) began broadcasting on ATV's analogue channels shortly after midnight on 2 April 2016.

[41] In December 2017, ATV announced that the company would continue its business with its new mobile app and OTT services, delivering programmes and shows through the internet instead of terrestrial broadcasting.

[45] This would start with international thriller Lockdown (2021) to be filmed around the world during the 2020 pandemic and feature a global cast including John Savage, Xander Berkeley, and Anita Chui.

[49] On 21 July 2007, ATV left its long-time home at 81 Broadcast Drive in Kowloon Tong and moved into a new facility in Tai Po.

In addition to producing its shows, ATV acquired popular TV programmes from overseas markets to cater to changing audience tastes.

Of note, ATV bought popular TV dramas from South Korea and Mainland China for broadcast in prime time.

Other infotainment programmes like Stories From Afar (尋找他鄉的故事) ranked highly in the Appreciation Index Survey Best Television Awards (香港電視節目欣賞指數), as reflected by a public review.

It offered a variety of programmes, mostly from the United States, ranging from popular serial dramas and films to documentaries and educational shows.

In the face of competition from TVB Pearl, ATV World switched focus from dramas and movies to documentaries and natural history shows, likely because such programming was less expensive to acquire.

There were several known incidents where TVB had certain dramas planned and were forced to cancel or rewrite scripts because the star(s) of the role left for other opportunities and vice versa.

[52] This was condemned as "extremely tasteless" by the German Consul-General, who added that the advertisement "hurts the feelings of the many victims of totalitarianism and fascism",[53] and as "outrageous and unbelievable" by his Israeli counterpart.

[54] The United Jewish Congregation of Hong Kong also condemned it as "disgusting", claiming that it "carries the newspaper to the very brink of moral bankruptcy", and was "an insult to the memories of all of Hitler's victims".

[56] Members of the student advocacy group Scholarism were labelled as "naive teenagers" who have allowed themselves to be "exploited by politicians" and are ruining their own futures by "playing with politics".