COMMUNICATIONS AND THE MEDIA
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organisations and again raised considerable amounts of money for worthy causes, in- cluding the Community Chest.
Commercial Radio was elected to the administrative council of the Asia-Pacific Broad- casting Union (ABU) for the first time and one of its services (CRI) took part in a children's story writing competition organised by the ABU in conjunction with the European Broadcasting Union.
The British Forces Broadcasting Service is part of the Radio Division of the Services Sound and Vision Corporation, a world-wide organisation which exists to provide entertainment, information and training films, video, radio and television for the British Forces, under the sponsorship of the Ministry of Defence. BFBS provides two radio services to cater for the special needs of the Gurkha and British Forces serving in Hong Kong. The Nepali service is broadcast for over 76 hours per week and caters specifically for the Brigade of Gurkhas, providing a link with the homeland by way of music, news, features, drama and educational programmes. The English service is on the air for about 130 hours each week. Again, the emphasis is on a link with the homeland and this is most strongly evidenced in the use of a telex feed from London, of the General News Service of the BBC, as used by the domestic service and BBC local radio stations in the UK.
Television
Television viewing continues to be Hong Kong's prime leisure activity with more than 94 per cent of households owning one television set or more. Two franchised commercial wireless broadcasting stations, Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) and Asia Television Limited (ATV), transmit an average of 495 hours of programming each week and together provide two English and two Chinese-language services for the community. The UHF 625-line PAL colour system is standard and virtually all transmission is in colour. Both TVB and ATV maintain large well-equipped studios and office complexes.
The television stations are licensed to operate under the provisions of the-Television Ordinance which is administered by the Television Authority. The Commissioner for Television and Entertainment Licensing is responsible for the regulation of the stations' licences and the issue and enforcement of the programme, advertising and technical standards required of the licensees. He is advised in these responsibilities by the Television Advisory Board. One of the main roles of the Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority (TELA) is to monitor regularly the performance of the television stations to ensure that the terms and conditions of their licence requirements are being met.
The quality and range of programmes on the four channels continue to improve and expand under the stimulus of the stations' competitiveness. Several local productions have won international awards. Both stations in 1984 experimented with new programme ideas; these included high-standard travelogues and documentaries on the Chinese cultural heritage, music shows, contemporary youth series, police dramas, shows involving the supernatural, light urban dramas, kung-fu productions injected with sophisticated special effects, and programmes with 3-D effects. In the main, station-produced serialised con- temporary dramas and period martial arts epics remain the major attractions during peak viewing hours on the Chinese services.
Increased coverage was given to informative and educational programmes, as well as current affairs, women's and children's programmes and sports events. The 1984 Olympic Games were covered in broadcasts totalling more than 200 hours on one station. New enrichment/educational featurettes on Chinese etymology and aphorisms were also intro- duced. For deaf viewers, a special weekly programme produced by RTHK and daily