COMMUNICATIONS AND THE MEDIA
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Satellite Television
STAR TV provides satellite and sound services from Hong Kong to the Asian region. A package of free-to-air channels providing sports, music, entertainment, news and Chinese- language programmes is delivered to about 220 million television viewers in 53 countries, stretching from Japan to Turkey and from Indonesia to Mongolia. A 24-hour pay movie channel featuring Asian and Western films was launched in May 1994 and was available initially in Taiwan, the Philippines and Macau. Another pay movie service was launched in October in India, Pakistan and the Gulf States. In May, STAR TV also introduced its own music channel to replace MTV. The music channel carried Putonghua programming to areas covered by the northern beam of AsiaSat I and Hindi programming to areas covered by the southern beam of AsiaSat I. In December, a Hindi entertainment channel was launched, broadcasting on the southern beam of AsiaSat I.
At the end of the year, 397 537 homes in Hong Kong were able to receive STAR TV and other satellite television programme services through Satellite Master Antenna Television (SMATV) systems.
A further three new satellite services were launched during the year from Hong Kong. . These included Turner's TNT and Cartoon Network, Chinese Television Network, and the Robert Chua Infotainment Channel, which in total provided four new channels to the region. These channels were uplinked through Hong Kong Telecom International Limited's facilities. The majority of channels were encrypted and were initially only available in countries where subscription arrangements could be concluded. Increasing numbers of Asian countries will be added as and when further such arrangements are made.
Subscription Television
Since the award of the subscription television licence to Wharf Cable Limited in June 1993, the licensee has made good progress in providing its service to the public. The service, delivered by microwave initially, had passed 600 000 homes by the first anniversary of the award of the licence. A total of 16 channels were available by the end of 1994, providing the world's first round-the-clock news service in Cantonese, plus films, sports, family entertainment, education, ethnic, children's and women's channels. The microwave system used for delivery will eventually be replaced by an optical fibre cable network, which will mean that the capacity of the system can be increased to 39 channels.
Radio Television Hong Kong (Television)
As a public broadcasting organisation, the major role of Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) continued to be the production of programmes that were not sufficiently provided by the commercial broadcasters.
RTHK continued to produce 10 hours of public affairs television programmes each week during the year. Of these, five hours of programmes were broadcast during prime time throughout the week on the Chinese channels of the two commercial stations (TVB and ATV). A few English programmes, such as The Week in Politics, Media Watch and Hong Kong Connection, were shown on the English channels.
RTHK programmes fell basically into six categories: current affairs; documentaries; drama; information and community services; children's, youth and variety programmes; and general educational programmes. According to a television audience survey report, the