Radio_Hong_Kong_1955-1956 — Page 14

27. Good examples of the dramatic form being utilized to put useful information across to the public were a play about the Blood Bank performed by Chinese staff of the Social Welfare Office, and a play to publicize the Anti-Typhoid Campaign broadcast by members of the Medical Department staff.

Light Entertainment

28. One afternoon in December 1955 a small party of professional singers and musicians with a Radio Hong Kong producer bundled into a station-wagon and followed another van, full of recording engineers and equipment to a large paint factory at North Point. Here in the canteen the microphones and recording-machines were set up, and an audience of factory workers were soon applauding and joining in with the singers as the first "Worker's Playtime" got under way. This was the Chinese Section's first experiment in presenting entertainment programmes in an outside setting, with the setting and the members of the audience as a feature of the show. This technique of listener participation is nothing new in Western Radio practice, and Hong Kong audiences were not slow to catch-on. These "Worker's Playtime" programmes improved with experience and as new ingredients were added; amateur talent among the audience was encouraged; a quiz with small cash prizes was added; a prize was given for the telling of the best dialect story. By the end of the year there was a small queue of factories waiting for a visit from the show.

29. Listener participation was also introduced into a number of other programmes of light entertainment. "Popularity Poll" invited listeners to write in naming the three most requested tunes of the week; the winner to receive a small cash prize, the prize to accumulate to the next week if no listener guessed correctly. There was an immediate and enthusiastic response, mainly from younger listeners; within a few pro- grammes over six hundred letters a week were being received.

30. Request programmes continued to be as popular as ever, and to attract regular listeners from Macao, Canton, Formosa, Malaya, Indo-China, Indonesia, Sarawak and North Borneo. In November 1955 a special forces request pro-

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