PRESS, BROADCASTING, TELEVISION, FILMS AND TOURISM 285
Permanent equipment was being installed in the distin- guished visitors' suite at Kai Tak at the end of the year to improve the handling of press conferences and interviews at the Airport.
Reports and observations during the year indicated that both mediumwave transmissions were increasingly affected by interference from overseas stations. The problem of im- proving Radio Hong Kong's reception had still not been finally solved at the end of the year, and tests were con- tinuing.
Radio licences continued to rise and at the end of December stood at 64,486, an increase of 5,749 over the figures for 31st December, 1956.
Chinese Service. The expansion of the Chinese service was celebrated by a mammoth variety show broadcast on the evening of 26th May. Those who took part in the programme included well known film-stars, popular singers, Cantonese, Peking and Swatow opera stars and instrumentalists.
After this beginning, the service settled down to providing as wide a variety of programmes as possible. New live pro- grammes were introduced in the week following the expan- sion, including drama, music, programmes for women and children, recitals, dance music, talks, sports and film pro- grammes and documentaries.
Although the four story-tellers held their audience with ten talks a week, their popularity, for long unchallenged, was in danger of being rivalled by the dramatized story and the play. Nearly 50 English radio plays were broadcast in Cantonese during the year, 100 plays were broadcast in Kuoyü, 50 in Chiuchow, and there were 25 major produc- tions in Cantonese. These included nine plays adapted from ancient Chinese novels, five from modern novels and play scripts, and eleven translations of Shakespeare's plays. These included 'Macbeth', 'Hamlet' and 'The Merchant of Venice'. The Chinese service contributed a classical play in Cantonese,