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Television
THE MEDIA
Hong Kong became the first of Britain's overseas territories to operate a television station when in 1957 Rediffusion (HK) pioneered a wired television service on an exclusive franchise. Starting with a single channel operation the service continued to expand until by 1973 the company had more than 100,000 subscribers and was pro- viding a wide variety of programmes on two channels, one in Chinese and the other in English. The company terminated the service in October 1973. Before this the company had become a shareholder in a new company which in 1973 was granted a franchise to operate a dual-channel wireless television service.
The first wireless television service in Hong Kong was provided by Television Broadcasts (HKTVB) and came into operation in November 1967. This company, which enjoyed an exclusive wireless licence during its first five years, broadcasts on two channels, the Jade (Chinese) and the Pearl (English). The company employs the UHF 625-line PAL colour system with its main transmitters on Temple Hill and 10 auxiliary transmitters for each channel located in various areas. This gives complete coverage to all areas of Hong Kong with the exception of minor isolated rural pockets. The company maintains a large studio and office complex and employs 550 locally trained personnel.
The second wireless television licence franchise holder, Rediffusion Television, also uses the UHF 625-line PAL colour system and its main and auxiliary transmitters are co-sited with those of HKTVB. The company uses the studio and office premises of the previous wired service company which has been added to and modified exten- sively. The company began its Chinese service transmissions in December 1973 and its English service in April 1974.
The viewing public now has available to it a total of 350 hours of television weekly on four channels, mainly in colour. This will increase further in 1975 when it is expected that the third station, Commercial Television, also licensed in 1973, will go on air on a single Chinese-language channel.
This continuing increase in available programme services has been accompanied by a steady growth in television ownership. Television ownership at the end of 1974 was estimated to be 780,000 and 2.6 million people are said to watch television daily.
Under the Television Ordinance all television franchise holders are required to provide air-time for government produced programmes. The majority of those pro- grammes are produced by Radio Hong Kong's television production unit. This unit further expanded its production during the year and now provides a regular series of programmes in both English and Chinese for transmission by the commercial stations. Their Chinese drama services in colour continued to attract high viewer ratings and a new live discussion programme introduced during the year with studio audiences and phone-in participation attracted much local interest. Other government material conveying public service information messages and a regular series of topical features is produced by the Government Information Services.
There is also a requirement on licencees under the ordinance to broadcast the schools programmes produced by the educational television division of the Education