COMMUNICATIONS AND THE MEDIA
households also possessed a video cassette recorder. Each of the commercial television licensees, Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) and Asia Television Limited (ATV), provided one Chinese and one English language channel and together, on average, they transmitted over 560 hours of programming per week - an increase of about five per cent compared with 1993.
Competition between the two commercial television stations, especially the Chinese channels, remained very keen. Imported drama and documentary series played a more prominent role on the Chinese channels in 1994, especially during prime time. However, the concurrent screening of the same Taiwan-produced drama series, Judge Pao, on the two Chinese services at the same time-slot was widely criticised and the stations were reprimanded for this by the Broadcasting Authority. There was also some concern about the saturation coverage of the World Cup on all four terrestrial television channels. Viewers were becoming readier to express their views and to demand a good service from the licensees.
Documentary and current affairs programmes attracted much attention as the public became more conscious of the changes in the territory's political and social scenes. New types of current affairs talk shows and magazines, such as News Tease and Hong Kong Today on ATV's Chinese service, and Focus on Focus on TVB's Chinese service, were introduced. Quiz programmes on Chinese culture and history broadcast on TVB's Chinese service were also very popular. Live telecasts of international sports events, fund-raising charity shows, musical specials and beauty pageants sustained their appeal and won high audience ratings.
Many blockbuster movies were shown on commercial television during the year, also earning high viewer ratings.
On the English services, although emphasis was also placed on news and current affairs programmes, the major attractions remained feature films, sports events, documentaries and dramas.
More Putonghua and non-English programmes were broadcast on the English channels during fringe hours. The increasing use of multi-channel sound television broadcasts with the Near Instantaneously Companded Audio Multiplex (NICAM) system on both the English and Chinese commercial television services enabled more programmes to be broadcast in multilingual or stereo formats.
A public opinion survey on television broadcasting, conducted by the Broadcasting Authority during the period December 1993 to February 1994, showed that while com- mercial television services, especially the Chinese channels, remained the main source of entertainment for Hong Kong people at home, the average time viewers spent watching commercial television had decreased (from 4.2 hours a day in 1990 to 3.5 hours a day in 1994).
Compared with previous surveys, more viewers considered drama series, variety programmes, children's programmes, adult magazine programmes and cultural and arts programmes as being of very low or quite low quality.
The survey also revealed that nearly 40 per cent of the respondents had NICAM decoders in their households at the beginning of 1994; that 13 per cent of individuals interviewed could receive Star TV in their households; and that two per cent subscribed to the Wharf Cable television service.
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