COMMUNICATIONS AND THE MEDIA
to be well supported. In 1993, the programme launched a fund-raising concert in Shanghai with the Shanghai East Radio, and publicity visits were also made to various parts of China. Another major event was the annual Top Ten Chinese Gold Songs Award Presentation Concert, which promoted local musical talent and raised funds for charitable organisations.
Radio 3 is very much a part of the multi-national English-speaking community of Hong Kong. It is committed to maintaining a high quality English-language service and has boosted its speech content to offset cutbacks in English-language programming by commercial stations. The channel's flagship is its morning current affairs programme Hong Kong Today, which provides a comprehensive review of daily news and current affairs in the territory. Drive Time showcases a magazine programme, with studio guests giving their views on controversial issues of the day, international phone links and a review of the day's financial and stock markets by experts. Weekends feature documentaries, specialist music and programmes for Indian and Filipino communities.
Radio 4, the bilingual channel for fine music and the arts, broadcasts a wide range of fine music programmes and regular relays of concerts held at major cultural venues in the territory. In order to extend and broaden its audience profile, the channel has adopted a less formal presentation style. The channel promotes local musical talent and creative music through live studio recitals, commissions, and various projects such as Young Music Makers, Musicrama '93 and participation in the International Rostrum of Composers. The weekly magazines Signals and Kaleidoscope help promote the arts.
Radio 5 broadcasts educational, cultural and minority interest programmes like Cantonese opera, provincial music and features in Putonghua. The Care for the Elderly programme has now become an annual project and involves visits to various hostels for the elderly by popular personalities.
Radio 6 relays the BBC World Service round-the-clock. It broadcasts a wide range of programmes from news and current affairs, sport and documentaries to dramas, fine music and programmes for young people.
Radio 7 broadcasts news summaries, financial data and traffic information at 15-minute intervals on weekdays and 30-minute intervals on weekends. During typhoons, heavy rainstorms and other emergencies, special announcements are carried frequently. The channel plays middle-of-the-road music.
RTHK maintains regular links with broadcasting associations and overseas radio stations. The station co-produced programmes with radio stations in China and other ethnic Chinese stations. Through these exchanges, overseas Chinese communities and local audiences were able to keep in touch on a regular basis.
On the technical side, RTHK made a fundamental change to its radio presentation in 1993. A fully integrated music and audio storage system replaced the traditional on-air facilities. The new system is touch-screen operated, with superb sound quality comparable to that of a compact disk. It allows automation of, and simultaneous access to, CD tracks in juke-boxes and audio items located in mass storage. Its database management offers programming flexibility for on-air events.
Commercial Radio
Commercial Radio operates two Chinese services (CR1 and CR2) on FM frequencies and one English service (Quote AM 864) on an AM frequency on a 24-hour basis.
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