Engineering Staff
74. Mr. R. A. WINYARD, Chief Engineer, left the Colony for New Zealand to attend the Asian Broadcasting Union Conference on 11th - 29th October and on 4 months vacation leave starting on 14th March. During Mr. WINYARD's absence Mr. K. C. TAM, Assistant Broadcasting Engineer was acting Chief Engineer.
Mr. YAM Yau-ban, Assistant Engineer (Technical) and Mr. CHAN Sik-ki, Production Assistant, served a 4-month attachment with the Australian Broadcasting Commission (TV Division) during the year.
PROGRAMME OPERATIONS
75. The programme operations section, providing ancillary pro- gramme requirements such as studio and transport bookings, handling of programme material, preparation and maintenance of Chinese and English programme schedules, preparation and forwarding of copyright records and various other programme facilities, came into being with the move into the new building and settled down well with the appoint- ment of a Programme Officer (Programme Operations) later in the year.
This unit has been found to be of invaluable assistance in relieving producers and announcers of many of the administrative chores neces- sary in the preparation of a broadcast.
TRAINING
76. With an increasing number of Government Officers being called upon to make broadcast contributions to the news magazine programme 'Topics' and 'Topical Events', and also to take part in discussion programmes on a wide range of subjects it became increasingly obvious during the year that some form of practical training in microphone and interviewing techniques had become necessary. In order to meet this need Radio Hong Kong initiated a series of two-day courses, in English and Cantonese, in which members were invited to take part in simulated interviews and press conference situations. A team of staff producers and reporters acted as coaches, and advised their 'pupils' on the best methods of handling an interview or writing a script for broadcasting.
77. The number of members on these courses was deliberately kept small, usually about a dozen, in order that as much work as possible could be got through in the two days available. The first of these courses
15
Page 25Page 26