TNAG-2276-FCO40-3275-Hong-Kong-and-the-media-1991 — Page 66

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CALL ON MISS SPENCER BY HUTCHISON OF HONG KONG AND BBC WORLD SERVICE

Present

TELEVISION, THURSDAY 27 JUNE AT 1630

Ms Saunders Piff

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Miss Spencer

Mr Davies, Information Dept

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Lord Derwent, Hutchison

Mr Richard Li, Hutchison

Mr Chris Irwin,

Chief Executive, BBC WSTV

Miss Spencer began by saying that since the earlier meeting to advise us of the proposed Hutchison/WSTV venture we had been in

contact with Hong Kong and had been able to speak to the Governor during his present visit to London. The Governor had welcomed the prospect of a British TV service, but felt that no immediate change was possible in the present arrangements concerning Cantonese

broadcasting. However policy was under review and the position was

not immutably fixed.

2.

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by autumn this year.

Mr Irwin said that, after weeks of negotiation, Hutchison and

WSTV had committed themselves to a framework agreement for one of

Hutchison's Asiasat channels to take WSTV news and current affairs

programmes.

There were still some details to fill in and he

would go to Hong Kong in the next few days. There was now a real prospect of WSTV being transmitted from Asiasat

stretches from the Gulf across Asia to Japan

The service would be in English initially with rights also for Mandarin, and it was hoped that Cantonese programming would be possible in future. Lord Derwent said he thought it would be an

important UK objective for British television programmes to reach

Cantonese speakers in southern China and South East Asia. He found it paradoxical that the Hong Kong Government, for essentially local

reasons, should put an obstacle in the way of this.

Miss Spencer

asked about the relative importance of Cantonese and Mandarin among the potential audience. Was it not the case that even in Guangdong

Province Mandarin was understood, and that Mandarin was the

linguafranca among most overseas Chinese? Mr Li said that while

so Mandarin was still a second language for many. There

this was

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