less expensive wireless television service limited only by man's imagination, came into existence in the Colony. Registered and controlled in Hong Kong, HK-TVB is licensed to operate for a period of 15 years, subject to renewal at the end of every five years. It also enjoys an ex- clusive right to broadcast commercial television programs in the Colony until 1972. This franchise was granted to the station via up-dated copyright legislation early in 1968, at a time when there was some talk that illegal attempts might be made to diffuse TVB's programs into communal aerials without the station's
permission.
Popularity. HK-TVB is located in a modern studio complex near the mouth of the Lion Rock Tunnel in Kowloon. It employs the UHF, 625-line and PAL color systems to broadcast over its two networks Jade, which is primarily Cantonese, and Pearl, which is English. About 90% of Pearl's programs are in color.
The overall investment in TVB's facilities to date is in excess of US$3.5 million, much of it coming from such overseas stockholders as Time-Life In- corporated and the National Broadcast-
Market for TV makers
The growing popularity of wire- less television in Hong Kong means just as much to the Colony's elec- tronics manufacturers as it does to the men at the helm of HK-TVB. A precise measure of the market it generates is hard to arrive at, but it is reckoned around US$10 million - that being the projected earnings for the year ending 1969 of Sylvania Far East Limited. Sylvania is the only producer of wireless television sets with an international brand name in Hong Kong, aside from a local electronics facility which makes wireless sets on a small scale.
A subsidiary of General Tele- phone & Electronics, the U.S.-based electronics giant, Sylvania Far East has been producing its lines which range from semi-conductors to micro-circuits, in a US$1.5 million factory in the Colony since 1963. Its 12-story plant in the heart of Sanpokong, Kowloon, employs some 1,200 workers, nearly all of them local recruits. An expansion program under way will double both
the size of its premises and the number of its employees.
Sylvania first began producing its wireless, 12-inch, black-and- white portable television sets in mid-1968, in a bid to cash in on the growing TVB boom in Hong Kong as well as to help sate the world- wide demand for this particular model. Since then, the company has been concentrating increasingly on television manufacture, and hopes to produce color television sets in its Hong Kong plant by 1971.
Export market. Approximately 40% of the 150,000 television sets Sylvania Far East manufactures an- nually are sold in Hong Kong. The rest are exported to authorized agents in the Philippines, the United States and Europe. Presently, 30% of HK-TVB's 185,000 viewers use Sylvania sets; if one were to exclude those in possession of dual receivers, the figure would be nearer 60%.
A major producer of the elec- tronics components that go into the making of a Sylvania television set
•
ing Company, both of the United States, and EMI of England. With few excep- tions, its technical and artistic personnel is predominantly Chinese, many of them having received their television training in studios in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia.
At present, TVB serves approximate- ly 80% of the Colony's urban population. Its growth has been nothing if not spectacular. Within months after open- ing, it built its first two-relay translator (one for Jade, the other for Pearl) on Lamma Island. This translator relays signals received from TVB's Temple Hill
is Oak Electro/Netics Corporation
(Hong Kong) Ltd., a subsidiary of
another American electronics giant believed to be the world's largest producer of television tuners. Oak Hong Kong's products line ranges from switches to radio components, but its prime emphasis is on tele- vision tuners, of which it turns out over two million a year. The tuner, or the front end of a television set, selects, amplifies and converts broad- cast frequencies to an intermediate frequency for further amplification.
The US$2-million Oak Hong Kong plant began production in 1964 and has expanded no fewer than three times since then. Starting out with a 5,600-square-foot plant and a labor force of 300, it com- mands today a 72,000-square-foot plant and a labor force of some 1,600. Its growth is, however, typi- cal of the Colony's burgeoning elec- tronics industry, despite a stubborn labor shortage.
Big turnover. Oak Hong Kong is the first of its parent company's overseas subsidiaries to surpass the annual production rate of its domes- tic plants in the U.S. Its performance record is so impressive in fact, that the parent company has significantly scaled down the operations of its Japanese subsidiary, thereby mak- ing Hong Kong the center of its growing Far East operations.
In addition to Sylvania, Oak Hong Kong also supplies its tuners to Zenith, Philco, General Electric, Admiral and Motorola, Both colored and black-and-white tuners for U.S. customers are fabricated from parts airfreighted to Hong Kong from America in order to meet their special requirements.
Asian Industry
50
May 1969