PART I
INTRODUCTION
1957/58 was a year of development and expansion in broadcasting. Radio Hong Kong increased the hours of broadcasting on its Chinese Service to provide an all day public service of information, education and entertainment and an increase in the hours of broadcasting in English on Sundays was coupled with the development of a more richly varied programme service. Rediffusion (H.K.) Ltd. started its wired vision service in May, the first television service in any Colony. In December the Government accepted a tender for the operation of a commercial radio station which is expected to commence towards the end of 1958.
The people of the Colony are, therefore, receiving an ever increasing variety of broadcast entertainment.
2. Radio Hong Kong's role in this expanding industry is to develop to the full the tradition of public service broadcasting which has been built up since the station first went on the air nearly thirty years ago.
One fundamental principle underlying this policy is that broadcasting must take account of the needs of all sections of the community, not catering merely to the interests of the majority.
3. Acting on this principle, Radio Hong Kong, in collaboration with the B.B.C., conducted during the year a full scale survey of the radio audience in the Colony and, of more immediate interest to listeners, increased considerably those programmes in which the listeners, men and women from all walks of life in Hong Kong, take part.
These programmes contain in themselves all three of the major aims of public service broadcasting, to inform, to educate and entertain; and, perhaps most important, much of the information, education and enter- tainment is produced by listeners themselves, thus stimulating the natural desire for self-expression which is in danger of being swamped by the overwhelming variety of canned diversion offered by all mass entertain- ment media.
4. In the years to come, this function of radio as a mental stimulant, rather than a sedative, will continue to be one of the most important
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