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PUBLICATIONS, BROADCASTING AND FILMS
Programmes are produced in air-conditioned studios and include many 'live' presentations such as Cantonese operas, dance orchestras, night-club acts, children's features, and interviews. Popular filmed television shows are imported from the United Kingdom and America, and six full-length feature films are tele- vised each week. Rediffusion television programmes give about forty hours of entertainment weekly, some of them commercially sponsored. During that part of the day when the television service is not transmitting the sound channel covers the activities of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. This is an on-the-spot report from the floor of the Exchange.
More than 97% of the television staff are locally-trained Chinese. The rental fee is $55 per month, including receiving unit and all maintenance. For subscribers who have their own television sets the monthly rental is $25 which covers the programme fee and full maintenance.
FILM INDUSTRY
The Colony's eight major studios and many independent pro- ducers again maintained a high output, submitting 273-feature films in Chinese to the Panel of Film Censors for local exhibition. Of these, 198 had sound-tracks in Cantonese, 60 in Mandarin, and 15 were in other dialects. Hong Kong companies also supplied finance, stars and technicians for films made in Taiwan, Japan and south-east Asian countries.
Production costs are governed by the limited market available. China does not import Hong Kong films and the total audience in Taiwan and among the overseas Chinese living in the Philippines and south-east Asia amounts to only about 25 million. Producers must therefore concentrate on quantity rather than quality in order to show a profit. However, several of the larger studios turn out at least one major production costing up to $1 million each year, and at the Seventh Asian Film Festival held in Tokyo in April, Hong Kong won top honours for the third consecutive year. The Golden Harvest award for the best picture was won by the Shaw Brothers' production 'Back Door', while Lucilla Yu Ming was voted the best actress for the second consecutive year for her role in the Motion Picture and General Investment Company's