Educational
Telcorso
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CONFIDENTIAL
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XCC(72)14
from the Governor in Council to the Television Authority acting on the advice of the Television Advisory Board (recommendations 20-21). There are, and may always be, areas for which it will be uneconomic to provide coverage but recommendation 22 which defines 'uneconomic' as 'detrimental to a licensee's service as a whole' should ensure that exemptions will be rare.
Government requirements
17
Section 25 of the Television Ordinance requires a licensee to provide up to one hour's air-time per day for programmes produced by the Government. This time will be utilised by Radio Hong Kong Television (RHK-TV). The working party considers this time to be sufficient but recommends a minor amendment (recommendation25) which would allow the Television Authority to aggregate the time pro- vided up to 11⁄2 hours a day under certain circumstances provided the overall limit of 7 hours per week is not exceeded. Recommendation 26 would require a licensee to make available to Government its own equipment free of charge for the transmission of programmes.
18
Recommendations 23 and 24 concern the free air- time that licensees should be required to make available for the trans- mission of ETV programmes. These recommendations were not unanimous. As the issues are complex and as an immediate decision is not necessary it is proposed that the subject should be considered at a later date once conclusions have been reached on the main issues of the working party's report.
19
In recommendations 27-28 the working party proposes that the Royal Observatory should provide assistance free of charge to those licensees who wish to produce their own weather programmes and also that these programmes should be produced by RHK-TV. It is necessary to discuss these recommendations further with the Director, Royal Observatory and it is proposed, therefore, that they should be con- sidered separately.
20
Recommendations 29-31 concern the problems that may arise from each licensee operating his own news teams and propose that the Government should advise licensees that the position will be kept under review as a warning that it might become necessary to impose controls in the future,
Technical considerations
21
The technical report at Appendix C of the working party's report shows that the ultimate development of the frequencies available for wireless television in Hong Kong allows for the operation of six services. The establishment of still further services depends either on technological advances in the field of wireless broadcasting (e. g. the utilisation of higher frequencies in the GHz range or a narrowing of the present 8 MHz bandwidth) or on a sufficient rise in the general standard of living to make the widespread use of advanced cable systems an eco- nomic proposition. For the next ten years at least the working party
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