PRESS, BROADCASTING AND CINEMA
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East Evening Post, World Evening Express, Happy News, Tsao Pao, and Kam Pao. A Chinese edition of the Reader's Digest began publication in March. This monthly, sold at HK$1.50 a copy, has a wide circulation both locally and overseas.
Chinese and English-language newspapers are represented in the Newspaper Society of Hong Kong which has 18 members. The Society, formed in 1954, is empowered to act in all matters affecting the interests of Hong Kong newspapers in general, or of the Society or its members in particular. Hong Kong remains the base of South-East Asian operations for all the important news agencies and many international magazines, newspapers, radio and television networks. International news agencies are represented by the Associated Press of America, the Agence France Presse (French News Agency), Reuter (in association with the Australian Associated Press) and United Press International.
Newsworthy events during the year included a run on a number of Chinese banks and the seizure of a large quantity of opium at a farm in the New Territories, both in February, a gun battle inside the South Kowloon Magistracy Building in June, a 'body in the trunk' murder case in July, the crash of an aircraft into Yau Tong Bay in August, Princess Alexandra's private visit to Hong Kong in September and the American Society of Travel Agents' Convention in the same month.
BROADCASTING
Transistor radios, which are on sale in Hong Kong at very low duty-free prices, have brought radio listening within the reach of virtually the entire population of the Colony during the past five years. Everyone, whether living in a crowded resettlement estate in the heart of Kowloon or in a tiny New Territories village, listens to the radio at some time every day. News bulletins in Chinese and English almost certainly draw the biggest consistent listener- ship, but light entertainment consisting of Chinese opera and Western music is now regarded as an almost indispensable back- ground to daily life. Two stations-Radio Hong Kong and Com- mercial Radio-transmit programmes in Chinese and English over the air, while a third-Rediffusion-broadcasts both sound and television programmes on a wired network.