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PRESS, BROADCASTING AND CINEMA
There is also a thriving periodical press in both languages and international recognition came this year to one of Hong Kong's leading magazines when the editor and managing editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review shared the Magsaysay award for their significant contribution to this field of journalism with its very special importance in Asia.
Hong Kong continues to be a base for the operations of all the important news agencies and many international magazines, news- papers, radio and television networks. More than fifty of these staff correspondents are members of the Foreign Correspondents Club which serves as a meeting place as well as to represent their common interests.
There are three sound broadcasting systems in the Colony and a wired television service. An ordinance to authorize wireless television was passed in November this year. This will be a com- mercial service and the licensee will be appointed on the basis of a tender.
A diversity of radio transmission is only to be expected in a place where the pocket transistor has taken a firm grip. Farmers ploughing rice fields behind water buffalo listen to opera, bus conductors tuck them into tunic pockets to catch the latest foot- ball score. In fact the gap between the number of radio licences, 142,181, and the obviously greater number of sets in existence is a current problem.
There is certainly plenty to listen to. The three stations are on the air for seventeen hours daily—and longer still when typhoons threaten at which times the stations stay open until the danger has passed.
The content of broadcasting varies somewhat with each station, depending to some extent on the basis of their revenue and the degree to which they depend on advertising.
RADIO HONG KONG
Radio Hong Kong is a government department and carries no advertising. It is the longest established radio station in the Colony, and in fact one of the oldest of colonial broadcasting stations having begun operations in 1928. The station broadcasts both