RTHK should be given an increased presence on TV air time especially during prime time.
The Board therefore recommended that RTHK should be given a larger presence on TV. The Board has examined a few options, but in order to enable it to recommend a financially independent RTHK, it recommended
it recommended that RTHK be allocated nine hours of air time per week on each of the Chinese channels, five of which should be within prime time on week days; and four hours of air time on each of the English channels, all within weekends; making a total of 26 hours per week on all channels (under the existing law RTHK is allowed a maximum of 28 hours per week on all channels).
Current Arrangements
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to
In addition to broadcasting Announcements of Public Interest, ETV and news programmes, TV licensees are required, under S.25 of the Television Ordinance (Chapter 52), broadcast on each service up to seven hours per week (i.e. a total of 28 hours on the four channels) of government programmes, provided that it does not exceed 1-1/2 hours of the station's daily transmission time. RTHK currently produces about 12 hours of programmes per week, the majority being in Chinese. In the last 12 months, with regular repeat broadcasts, more than seven hours of RTHK programme were broadcast per channel per week. In 1984/85, with the agreement of the commercial TV stations, the ATV Chinese channel carried on average 11 to 12 hours of RTHK programmes a week and TVB Jade carried on average about eight hours a week. Each of the two English channels, however, only carried one to two hours of RTHK programmes per week. There is therefore an obvious need to increase the statutory limit on TV air time for RTHK programmes on the Chinese TV channels while the requirements for air time on English channels are considerably less.
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Since there is no provision in the current Television Ordinance regarding access to prime time, the scheduling of RTHK programmes on TV is negotiated between RTHK and the two licensees. RTHK has always been in a weak negotiating position because, amongst other things, it has to rely on the courtesy of the two commercial TV stations to provide artists for the production of RTHK TV programmes. As a result, most RTHK programmes are relegated to fringe viewing hours or weekends.