PRESS, PUBLISHING, BROADCASTING, FILMS AND TOURISM 275
field was the construction of a parabolic reflector for use with a sound effects microphone, which enables distant sounds to be picked up with great clarity.
Other technical improvements included the installation of con- trol desks for announcers in continuity studios, replacement of obsolescent equipment in recording channels, construction of tape/ disk playback units for programme compilation and modifications to outside broadcast vans. An average of thirty eight outside broadcasts and sixty four outside recordings a month were made.
COMMERCIAL RADIO
On the 26th August 1959, the Officer Administering the Govern- ment, Mr. C. B. Burgess, officially opened Commercial Radio, Hong Kong, operated by the Hong Kong Commercial Broadcasting Company Limited.
The new station, including its studios, transmitters and antenna, is situated at Lai Chi Kok in Kowloon and broadcasts on two frequencies on the medium wave band, 1530 Kc/s. and 1050 Kc/s., for the English and Cantonese transmissions respectively, from 7 a.m. to midnight daily.
Two 1 KW transmitters are used and their signals are radiated through a single antenna, 175 feet in height, by the use of a diplexer. The studio building is of a bungalow type and in it are housed five studios, two programme departments, the transmitters, record library, workshop and the staff common-room. The staff at present numbers 70.
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Commercial airtime is sold either by the hour, the half hour, or the quarter hour; spot announcements of ten seconds to sixty seconds duration are also sold. The rates run from HK$5.50 per hour for 'A' time on the Chinese programme to HK$10 for one ten-second announcement on the English programme. At the end of the year, the station had 137 sponsors covering 150 products from toothpaste to refrigerators and had received 38,559 letters in the last four months of the year alone.
English Programme. The English Programme is under the direc- tion of a Programme Director assisted by five programme assistants with eighteen staff members and two contract artists as well as contributors from the local European community. Seven of the