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COMMUNICATIONS AND THE MEDIA
Commercial Radio
The existing Commercial Radio was awarded a new licence for another 12 years in 1989. The changeover to VHF-FM stereo broadcasting for its two Chinese services and the allocation of a new frequency on the AM band for its English service resulted in better transmission quality and gains in listenership. All three services broadcast 24 hours a day and maintained the tradition of up-to-the-minute news with bulletins every half-hour including reports sent from correspondents in major cities.
Traffic reports were broadcast throughout the day with the deployment of a helicopter during the morning peak hour. The light and chatty reporting style of its team of traffic reporters continued to receive wide recognition.
This was a year of important changes in the territory and in its varied and diverse programming, the Chinese Service intensified its civic education and public affairs programmes. CR1 gave considerable publicity support to the registration of voters and environmental protection projects, and Always in My Heart in which acts of gallantry were highlighted.
Heavy involvement with charitable organisations was an important hallmark with CR1 and the station took part in various charity fund-raising campaigns.
As well as providing entertainment and good music, CR2 was heavily involved in promoting civic consciousness and environmental protection in a locally-written and recorded disc The New Generation of Green Power. Its tradition of promoting local artists -and culture was upheld in a Creativity Concert and a concert entitled New Generation of
Artists on Parade.
The English Service continued its policy of good music and easy listening, middle- of-the-road music with a better signal on 864 kHz. At the International Radio Festival of New York, CRE again won a gold medal for the current affairs segment Viewpoint and finalist status for Letter from Hong Kong.
British Forces Broadcasting Service
The British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) is part of the radio division of the Services Sound and Vision Corporation, a worldwide organisation providing entertainment, in- formation and training films, video, television and radio services for the British Forces, under contract to the Ministry of Defence.
BFBS provides two radio services designed for the particular needs of the Gurkhas and British Forces serving in Hong Kong, Brunei and Nepal.
Nepali programmes, broadcast for 90 hours each week from Sek Kong in the New Territories, cater for the interests of the Brigade of Gurkhas, providing music and features reflecting daily life with the brigade in Hong Kong as well as in Nepal and Brunei. News reviews, sport, quiz programmes and audience participation phone-ins help to complete the service.
The English-language service broadcasts 24 hours a day with most of the programmes coming from the main studio complex in Sek Kong. However, the news and speech orientated lunchtime programme Roundabout Hong Kong comes from the BFBS studio at HMS Tamar.
The BFBS satellite enables the station to broadcast such major programmes as BBC Radio Four's The World This Weekend and BBC Radio Two's Sport on Two as well as other major sporting and State occasions.