Immediately after publication, copies were sent to members of representative bodies and selected community organizations, commercial firms and professional bodies with an invitation to comment. The bulk of the printed copies was distributed free to the general public through Information Services Department's Headquarters and Publication Centres, District Offices, police stations, post offices and public housing estate management offices. In all, 2.4 million copies were distributed.
2.7 The availability of the White Paper at the outlets described above was announced regularly through all radio and television stations. The contents of the White Paper were presented and discussed in different programmes on radio and television. The Governor and other senior government officials also emphasized on a number of occasions how important it was for the people of Hong Kong to state their views on the draft agreement to the Office.
Public Response
2.8 It is difficult to judge and even more difficult to quantify the scale of response to be expected from five and a half million people invited to express their views about a draft agreement crucial to their own future. In the event, the reaction of the many organizations, the character of the individual responses, and the attention devoted by the media showed the response from the community as a whole to have been vigorous and sustained throughout the whole period of consultation. Many organizations took the initiative to arrange group discussions and to conduct opinion polls so as to enable them to present their collective views either directly to the Office, or indirectly via other recognized channels of consultation. The media also played an important rôle in disseminating information and in reporting on the views expressed. The letters received were, in the main, well presented, coming as they did from people from all walks of life.
2.9 To form an impression of the significance of the response it is necessary, before quantifying the response, to describe and to analyse the background to the sources from which the views have been received.
(A) The Media
2.10 Hong Kong, having one of the highest newspaper readerships in Asia, has a flourishing free press, and is the Southeast Asia base for many newspapers, magazines and news agencies. Of the many Chinese-language dailies (totalling 70), some 30 papers cover news and public affairs. Of these, a dozen papers with an estimated total daily readership of about two million people cover discussions on the White Paper. Apart from the regional magazines such as Asiaweek and the Far Eastern Economic Review, there are altogether 459 periodicals, and of these 20 are devoted mainly to news and public affairs. There are 10 radio channels in Hong Kong with territory wide coverage.
The two enfranchised commercial wireless broadcasting stations, Television Broadcasts Ltd. (TVB) and Asia Television Ltd. (ATV) transmit a daily average of 70 hours of programmes. With more than 93 per cent of households owning one or more television sets, the two stations reach an estimated 4.8 million viewers. A popular programme can attract as many as 2-4 million viewers.
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