THE MEDIA
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foreign languages. The lessons are supported by external tutorials and examinations. Less formal instruction was also provided during the year in such subjects as drawing and Ikebana.
All three stations provide air-time for government-produced programmes. These include topical features and public service information messages supplied by the Government Information Services, but the majority of government programmes come from the television production unit of Radio Television Hong Kong.
In 1976 the public affairs television programme output of RTHK was approxi- mately four hours a week, taking up a total of around 8 hours a week on the five commercial channels. The long-running 'Below the Lion Rock' series, a weekly story of people living in a housing estate, continued to command one of the highest viewer ratings of any programme in Hong Kong. It also repeated its 1975 achievement by winning another award at the Asian Broadcasting Union's Shiraz Film Festival. Among new RTHK programmes introduced during the year were 'Youth Call', a 30-minute programme for the young which incorporates the popular and well-estab- lished 'Junior Police Call', and a new 26-part documentary series. Fresh versions were also introduced of the weekly police report programme shown on all five TV chan- nels. The programme aims to inform and involve the community in the fight by the police against crime.
Sound Broadcasting
Hong Kong's two sound broadcasting stations are Radio Television Hong Kong and Commercial Radio, which is associated with Commercial Television. RTHK, as the government radio station, is financed from general revenue and does not carry advertising. It has two English-language and two Chinese channels and broadcasts on both vhf and medium wave bands. The station is charged with producing radio and television programmes which inform, educate and entertain, and it operates under its own management.
In 1976 RTHK produced nearly 450 hours of varied radio programmes a week— ranging from popular music shows to news and current affairs features. The station provides an hourly international and local news service, with the Chinese channels putting out 4 hours of news a day and the English channels three hours--including BBC world services relays. During the year news programmes were expanded to in- clude a daily current affairs segment.
The growing political and commercial importance of Southeast Asia was reflected in the introduction of a current affairs programme covering the region as a whole, with correspondents in the major centres filing stories to the newsroom. The intro- duction on English-language radio of a sports magazine programme proved so successful that it quickly expanded to include live outside broadcasts, complementing the already established extensive sports coverage provided by the Chinese-language channels.
At the beginning of the year RTHK introduced the first regular FM stereo service in Hong Kong. Many excellent locally produced stereo programmes were put out, notably the Hong Kong Oratorio Society's 'Messiah' and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra's concert with the violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman.