PRESS, PUBLISHING, BROADCASTING, FILMS AND TOURISM 259
Cantonese, Mandarin, Swatow, Hakka, Shanghai and other dialects. The English service features continuous daily broadcasts of musical entertainment, plays, studio presentations, news, B.B.C. and other relays, sports events, stock-market news, features for women and children, and many other variety presentations. Chinese broadcasts raised more than $250,000 for needy families at the Chinese New Year.
Rediffusion employs 475 local people of whom 98% are Chinese, in addition to hundreds of musicians, soloists, story-tellers and dramatic artists.
Rediffusion rental for a loudspeaker is $10 per month, and sub- scribers have a constant choice of the three programmes provided, which involves the origination of 51 hours of programmes each day.
Rediffusion, which commenced thirty one years ago in the United Kingdom, operates in many parts of the Commonwealth and the Hong Kong company, locally controlled, is part of this world-wide organization.
Television. Rediffusion (H.K.) Ltd. opened the first television service in any British Colony in May 1957, and the service has been growing in popularity and quality of service since that date. At the end of 1958 a total of more than 2,500 subscribers had been reached.
Equipment includes the latest Pye telecine-camera chains with double channels for both 16 mm. and 35 mm. films and a full complement of studio and control equipment. Because of the language problem in Hong Kong, all Chinese films carry English captions and vice versa.
Programmes are originated from air-conditioned studios, and these include many 'live' presentations such as Cantonese operas, dance orchestras, night-club acts, children's features, and inter- views. The most popular filmed television shows have been imported from the United Kingdom and America for local trans- mission, and six full-length feature films are televised each week, Rediffusion television programmes provide approximately forty hours of wired television weekly, and some of the television periods are commercially sponsored. Outside broadcasts include many sports and special events, and a local and international newsreel is provided each evening. World personalities who appeared on