TNAG-1077-FCO40-1327-Broadcasting-in-Hong-Kong-proposed-BBC-relay-station-1981 — Page 41

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19

August 1981

Dear Nicky,

Thank you very much T01

ber of the 14th August.

While I am sure that the meeting between Tony Burgess, Alan Jones

and others was useful in the disclosing of hands, I suspect nothing very new or concrete emerged from it in what engineers would call real terms. Undoubtedly, however, some of the points raised in the letter I sent to you from the National Programme Manager of Radio New Zealand came under discussion (but not, I suspect, paragraph 3 on page 2 of Mr Downes's impassioned appeal!) but Í gather that after moderately close examination neither ODA nor British Council found that they were in any position to offer anything, guaranteed, secure or even warrantable. There was, hardly unexpectedly, no sign of a miraculous solution. The search continues. If any other ideas surface we shall be only too happy to exchange and develop them.

I thought you might be interested in the following extract from a letter from Philip Short, until very recently our correspondent in Peking. He Had been having dinner with the D-G of Chinese Broadcasting Administration,

Zhang Xiangshan. He wrote as follows. "All that apart, the atmosphere at dinner was extremely warm and friendly. Mr Zhang and Mr Zuo made more of an effort to be welcoming than I've seen for some time, and in the course of the conversation the question of reception came up and Mr Zhang said: 'Of course, you in the BBC have a very good opportunity to improve your reception in China, because you can site a relay station in Hong Kong.' He was complaining, incidentally, about Radio Peking's difficulty in broadcasting to Latin America now they have no relay station in Albania".

Lord N Gordon Lennox

Foreign and Commonwealth Office London SW1A 2AH

(Austen Kark)

Deputy Managing Director

External Broadcasting

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