PRESS, BROADCASTING AND CINEMA
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Dai Nippon, a Japanese-backed concern, prints the Asian editions of Time, Asia Weekly and other regional magazines. It also produces a considerable number of book titles each year for such publishers as Longman's, Thomas Nelson, Reed, and Macmillan. Also Japanese-backed, Toppan prints the Asian editions of Newsweek, Textile Asia, and almost a million copies every month of the prestigious Reader's Digest.
With its regional headquarters in Hong Kong, Reader's Digest not only produces monthly magazines in both Chinese and English, but also publishes many books ranging from hardcase to paperback, accounting for one-fifth of its entire operations.
The regional headquarters of Heinemann Educational Books Ltd was established in Hong Kong some 10 years ago. It now stocks an average of 250 titles with one- fifth of them printed locally. Another long-established educational book publisher with offices in Hong Kong is the Oxford University Press. McGraw-Hill Far Eastern Publishers recently set up an office to tap the ever-growing educational book market of Hong Kong, and IPC of London set up its regional headquarters in Hong Kong last year to handle the interests of its subsidiaries which include among others, the Paul Hamlyn Group, the Lansdowne Press and Jacaranda Press of Australia.
During the past 10 years many overseas publishers have established offices or regional headquarters in Hong Kong where printing represents a saving of up to 30 per cent in cost over other areas, backed up by good quality, and excellent distribution and communication facilities.
Television
Hong Kong had the distinction of becoming Britain's first overseas territory to operate a television service when Rediffusion (Hong Kong) Ltd (RTV) pioneered a wired television service in 1957. 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 viewer- ship has increased from 63,000 in 1957 to well over two million. At the end of 1972, it was estimated that 79.6 per cent of households possessed television receivers, of which 550,000 received only TVB, 43,000 received only RTV and 83,000 received both. Viewers may now watch some 366 hours of television a week-193 hours being transmitted by Rediffusion and 173 by HK-TVB. Of the total, 40 hours a week are taken up with the transmission of the government's educational television service.
RTV operates a wired television service in Hong Kong under an exclusive fran- chise which expires in April 1973. It offers a wide variety of programmes from 8 a.m. until midnight, with a 405-line, two channel service, one in Chinese and the other in English. All programmes, whether live, videotaped, telerecorded or filmed, originate from or are channelled through the company's multi-studio centre at Television House, Broadcast Drive, Kowloon. This modern production centre is equipped with 19 studios, of which nine are television, eight are audio studios and two are dubbing