COMMUNICATIONS AND THE MEDIA
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Joining forces with other print and electronic media, Commercial Radio also devoted considerable efforts in raising funds for the education of children in China, including the launching of Project Hope.
Metro Broadcast
Metro Broadcast also operates three channels, one English AM service and two FM services, on a 24-hour basis and has entered its second year of operation.
Metro News is Asia's only 24-hour English news channel. It is designed for news and information seekers and visitors coming through Hong Kong. It broadcasts local and world news at half-hourly intervals. Programmes also include financial and business information, sports news and features on travel, health, science and technology. The channel also operates an open line for the public to phone in during studio discussion programmes on public affairs and financial matters.
Hit Radio is a music channel broadcast mainly in Chinese. The channel's target listenership is the age group between 12 and 25. The disc jockeys call themselves the 'Hit Radio family' and organise outdoor activities for listeners to promote the station. The channel also organised a number of celebrity concerts to mark its first anniversary.
FM Select is a bilingual music channel for adults aged 25 and over. Nostalgic pieces of the thirties, forties and fifties, popular jazz, favourite tunes from the fifties to the eighties and selections of current pops are played non-stop throughout the day on this channel.
As a demonstration of its commitment to community affairs, Metro Broadcast launched a charity auction of gifts donated by show business celebrities on Father's Day with proceeds going to single-parent children. Other activities included visits to children centres and homes for the elderly.
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, infor- mation 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.
The English-language service broadcasts 24 hours a day with most of the pro- grammes coming from the main studio complex in Sek Kong. News, reviews, sport, quiz programmes and audience participation phone-ins help to complete the service.
The BFBS satellite enables the station to broadcast a regular weekly show live from London and major programmes such as BBC Four's The World This Weekend and BBC Radio 5's Sport on 5 as well as other major sporting and State occasions.
The production centre in London has a brief to keep its overseas listeners in touch with home and provides specialist programmes on a variety of subjects involving many of Britain's premier broadcasting personalities. BFBS London also provides live news every hour on the hour.
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