CONFIDENTIAL
the Government had decided that competition with RTV(HK) was necessary to safeguard the public interest; then the Government had unilaterally sought to restrict the terms of RTV (HK)'s existing licence so as to prevent them from rebroadcasting other Hong Kong originated pro- grammes. RTV (HK) had given certain assurances which by now should have permitted the Government to finalise Copyright legislation in the Colony. But the matter had been handled in such a leisurely way that even now it was not settled. (Mr Dennis said that they had had con- siderable difficulty in understanding the Colonial Secretariat's latest letter on the subject and the officer concerned with whom they had discussed it had not seemed too clear what he was trying to achieve). Mr Dennis spoke very frankly of the loss resulting from these events which were likely to be incurred by their subsidiary. The existing TV service was operated under a licence due to expire in April 1973, but was already barely breaking even and would be run at a loss, certainly from the begin- ning of 1973. The Government's progress over consideration of the future of TV had been extremely slow and it was unlikely that the call for tenders could be put out before November 1972. Depending on the time allowed for submis- sion of tenders the situation was likely to be:
Tenders issued
(3 months for
tenders) November 172
(6 months for
tenders) November 172
Tenders in
February '73
May 173
Decision on
August 173
November '73
award of licence
Issue of licence
following detailed negotiation
November 173
February 174
As far as new equipment was concerned it would take RTV(HK), if they won a licence, 10 months to get orders for new equipment placed, the equipment built and their programme on the air say about August 1974. For a com- pany starting from scratch, which did not have the studios etc which RTV (HK) have, he thought it might take till mid 1975. He gave these dates to show what an impossible position RTV (HK) would be in if it were obliged to consider running at a loss over the period April 1973 to the end of 1973 (assuming that its licence could be extended) but with no certainty that it would ever get a new licence and, if it got one, at increasing loss till the new service began. (He gave confidential figures for estimated losses
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CONFIDENT IAL
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