TVB-Europe (broadcaster)

From the late 1970s to the early 1990s the consumer of Chinese language programming in the United Kingdom was by videotape and TVB had established official video rental outlets for its dramas, however the official outlets did not have the geographical coverage to compete with videotape pirates who could always undercut it on price.

TVB found that its programs were being taped as they were broadcast in Hong Kong, mailed abroad, copied and shared between friends and hawked as a sideline by businesses serving the Chinese community.

The company initially shied away from branding itself outright as TVB-Europe; there being a broadcasting industry trade magazine, now owned by NewBay Media, with a similar name, styled TVBEurope.

The owners declared that it would seek administration for "The Chinese Channel Limited" on 9 December 2014 because of financial reasons, making its remaining 30 UK and 3 French staff redundant.

With the rise of online streaming, would be pirates had access to TVB programmes within minutes of their broadcast in Hong Kong, and in a bid to combat this TVB moved to a strategy of same day broadcast of its key television drama serials by its overseas subsidiaries, partners and affiliates.

Older TVB programmes as well as dramas from the defunct Asia Television are now available to either buy or be exchanged with loyalty points as part of the video on demand service.