Mr Wilford
Pa Ma Rayle
CONFIDENTIAL
See paras 9-1257
Exco
TELEVISION HONG KONG
1.
I attach the draft of a telegram to Hong Kong describing
the meeting which I had with Colonel Stirling on 4 December.
2.
I cannot discover from the papers or from members of
the department whether we have ever considered deeply the
question of the public service nature of the third, Chinese,
channel or commented on this to the Governor. Colonel Stirling
XCC(72)14 may be right in suggesting that the third programme is becoming
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more commercial than was originally intended and that this
could lead to the lowering of standards. But TVB's motives
must be suspect, since their own advertising revenues are at
stake. Colonel Stirling acknowledged this. But he said that
he personally was more interested in public service television
than in commercial TV and he thought we should be too.
3. I repeated that the technical questions which he had
raised and in which he was still interested were a matter for
the Hong Kong Government, not for us. On the third programme,
If
we did not know the Governor's current intentions.
Colonel Stirling wanted to see Mr Royle (as he did) I thought
he should wait until we heard from the Governor.
4.
Since speaking to Colonel Stirling I have received a
letter from the Governor, and the record of his interview with
CONFIDENTIAL
/Colonel
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