PRESS, BROADCASTING AND CINEMA
PRINTING AND PUBLISHING
179
The growth of Hong Kong as a high quality book and magazine production centre during the past three years has been little short of spectacular, and it is still growing. The Colony produces well over 50 per cent of books published in Australia, and is now begin- ning to make significant inroads into the Canadian and American markets.
The Asian editions of Newsweek, Time and Readers' Digest are produced in Hong Kong together with several quality monthly colour magazines for Australia and the Pacific region. The two largest Japanese printing firms, Toppan and Dai Nippon, have a large investment here and concentrate on magazine production, although between them they produced some 300 book titles for export during the year.
The largest book printer specialising in colour printing is Lee Fung, which alone produced about 600 titles in 1971. There are several other significant producers of quality books and magazines and one company, Serasia Limited, which has sales offices in Europe and North America, specialises in assisting overseas publishers to make the best use of available capacity here.
The publishing industry has also made significant progress. Oxford University Press and Longman are both well established in Hong Kong and originate and produce books designed specially for local needs and also several for export. One of the busiest printing works in Hong Kong is that of the Government Printer, which handles an extremely wide variety of publications, ranging from examination papers to this Report.
The development of the publishing and printing industry is such that it is fast becoming a sector of some significance to the economy.
TELEVISION
Hong Kong had the distinction of being the first British Colony to operate a television service when, in December 1957, Rediffusion (Hong Kong) Ltd (RTV) pioneered a wired television service. The company began operating on one channel which produced 28 hours of television a week to about 63,000 viewers.
A second television service came into operation in November 1967, with the first wireless transmissions from Television Broadcasts Ltd (HK-TVB). Television viewership has increased from 63,000 in 1957 to well over two million. At the end of August it was estimated that 72 per cent of households possessed television receivers. Viewers