transmitter over the entire southern shore of Hong Kong Island, encompass- ing more than a quarter million people. Its second translator, at Castle Peak, pro- vides viewing pleasure to some 160,000 people in Ping Shan, Yuen Long, Sek Kong and parts of Fanling. Its third translator, atop Cloudy Hill, serves the remaining portions of Fanling plus Taipo Market, Sheung Shui, Kam Tsin and the western side of Lowu. The translators are in continuous operation from 12 noon to midnight daily. So strong are their signals that one of them manages to reach the Portuguese and Chinese resi- dents of Macau, some 40 miles away, who claim that the reception there is as good as it is in Hong Kong.
Response. The swiftness of HK-TVB's acceptance by Hong Kong surprised everybody, not the least among them, the ten men who comprise its resident board of directors. Each is a tai pan in his own right, and presumably inured to the numerous teething troubles that must be borne with patience at the beginning of any new venture. Even they were pleasantly taken aback when a Television Audience Measurement Sur- vey, launched a scant six months after the station began operating, noted that the number of wireless television viewers in Hong Kong was growing at twice the pace witnessed in Australia during the early years of wireless television. The same survey also found that nearly 60% of the total number of wireless television sets then owned in the Colony had been purchased when TVB had merely an- nounced that it was preparing to go on the air.
Presently, TVB has some 185,000 subscribers, or roughly one million view- ers, on the statistical assumption that every television set is used by 5.7 viewers in Hong Kong, as opposed to 3.2 in the United Kingdom. (In Hong Kong, it is a common practice among groups of view- ers to join hands and buy a set on the instalment plan, sometimes as many as 400 people contributing what they can to purchase a single set, as in the New Territories.)
By mid-1969, TVB projects its sub- scribers will peak 200,000, of whom some 60,000 will be owning wireless- only sets. The remainder will possess dual-receiver models which receive both wired and wireless programs. The magic, if such is the word, behind TVB's ob- vious success is that of subscription-free programming. "People watch us because they can afford us," says Mr. C.P. Ho, a former Reuter correspondent who is
Asian Industry
Managing Director Andrew Eu
now the station's director of public affairs. "That, if nothing else, is incen- tive for us to proceed."
Entertainment. Nevertheless, TVB's modest promoters admit that the station carries little weight politically, and is far from comprehensive in its news coverage. Rather, the station is more conservative in the role it sees itself playing in the community. It tacitly refrains from bit- ing social commentaries or lengthy criti- ques of the government. While it does beam some 20 hours of news a week and several discussion programs - Meet the Press, Youth Wants to Know among them- its main purpose is ostensibly entertaining, bringing to the Chinese community of Hong Kong glimpses of a world few knew much about before. In this, TVB has succeeded. To be sure, the bulk of the programs beamed over its Jade network are not much better than those aired over RTV's Channel 1, but there are several exceptions, notably the mad-cap, excellently executed Enjoy Yourself Tonight (EYT).
EYT, so described by the thousands who watch it nightly, is to Hong Kong's Chinese what Johnny Carson and the Tonight Show are to Americans. When it first went on the air, television critics throughout the Colony panned it, rightly or wrongly, for its inane pretentious- ness. They gave it less than a month to live, but as so often happens in the never-never land that is television, the show caught on, the critics hastily re- canted, and in no time at all, EYT was expanded from its original 60-minute format to its present 90 minutes.
Approximately 30% of EYT is script- ed, the remainder being adlibbed by two pretty ladies who compere it. Between the two of them, and the almost 500
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"just plain folk" they manage to work into their outlandish skits each month, EYT has acquired an audience said to be the largest for any single show in Hong Kong. EYT was conceived by Mr. Colin B. Bednall, who relinquished his position as TVB's managing director a few weeks ago. Mr. Bednall, the man to whom most attribute TVB's success, brought in from Australia to nurse TVB through its fledgling stages. Back home, he had saved (so the reports say) GTV-9, an Australian television station, from near-bankruptcy by overhauling its en- tire format. EYT is patterned after his In Melbourne Tonight, beamed over GTV-9 every evening.
Expansion. Notwithstanding its pop- ularity, TVB is far from a money-spinner right now, mainly because it has expend- ed large sums of money, quite apart from the US$3.5 million mentioned previously, on additional technical equip- ment. It hopes to expand its color coverage on the Jade network and to introduce more live broadcasting on both channels. Presently, the bulk of its English-language Pearl programming is "canned."
TVB's advertisers prefer to display their wares on Jade, for this obviously is the network the majority of its viewers tune in to. Approximately 70% of its advertising comes from internationally known firms, who either re-do their commercials in Cantonese or display the appropriate Chinese characters to explain the commercial's running com- mentary. However, few commercials are scen on Pearl. TVB's operations are partly defrayed by the TV guide-like booklet published by the station and sold on the streets every week at 5 US cents a copy. The booklet boasts a readership of 160,000, outstripping al- most all other popular journals in circulation.
TVB's most immediate project is to assist, in conjunction with RTV, Radio Hong Kong's television debut later this year. The latter is launching a Public Affairs Television Unit and wants to show its films, pending government ap- proval, on both TVB and RTV. These stations have already agreed to the pro- ject in principle. The program will seek to present to the government the peo- ple's view of that august body via tele- vision. Radio Hong Kong will work with a government film unit, filming those events which most affect the lives of the residents. The program will be broadcast in English as well as Chinese, first on a monthly and later on a weekly basis.
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Mr. Laird