and on all public holidays continuous programmes were broadcast from 8 a.m. until midnight in both English and Chinese. With the arrival in the Colony of large numbers of reinforcements for the garrison, a sponsored programme for the Forces on Saturday and Sunday afternoons was introduced on 3rd September to bridge the four hour period from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. These extensions of broadcasting hours on holidays proved very popular with listeners. The new studios in Electra House are due for completion during the first quarter of 1950, and it is hoped that Radio Hong Kong will have transferred to its new premises by March 1950.
Hong Kong has been much in the headlines during the last year, and in view of the rapid trend of events in China additional locally compiled news services in English and Chinese were broadcast in the evenings before the stations closed down. Other news services have been maintained as usual; bulletins are broadcast three times daily in English and Chinese.
In the Chinese section, relays of plays from the Cantonese theatre and storytelling remained the most popular pro- grammes. It was decided that instead of closing the station at 11 p.m., transmission hours might be extended until the finish of plays, and the public gave their warm approval to this concession.
On the engineering side developments and expansion have proceeded rapidly. The 16% increase in the hours of broadcasting has necessitated the installation of several new outside broadcast points, and the number of outside broad- casts increased by 33%. Recordings always form a major part of the activities of the engineers, and in this section the number of recordings made rose by 150%.
Close touch has been maintained with the B.B.C., the B.B.C. Transcription Service, Radio Ceylon, the British Far Eastern Broadcasting Service at Singapore and
and United Nations Radio at Lake Success. Facilities have been provided for a number of radio correspondents from overseas, including representatives of CBS, Rocky Mountain Radio, NBC, CBC, B.B.C., Norak Rikskringkastning, Schweizer Radiozeitung, Radiodiffusion Francaise, Saigon, etc. The first direct broad- casts from Hong Kong to the B.B.C. and to CBS, New York, were made during the summer.
From April to October 1949 a member of the staff of Radio Hong Kong attended training courses in Great Britain organised by the B.B.C. Staff Training School and the British Council. He was also seconded to the B.B.C.'s Far Eastern Service for three months as a Chinese Programme Assistant/Announcer.
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