ENG-1959 — Page 322

PRESS, PUBLISHING, BROADCASTING, FILMS AND TOURISM 271

music which were produced by Radio Hong Kong staff, each concert reflecting a different aspect of the Chinese musical reper- toire. Contemporary instrumental music by a newly formed thirty- piece orchestra was followed by a concert of works for chorus and voices and a performance of instrumental music and opera from Northern China. Two Festival plays were also broadcast in Chinese but the major dramatic performance was a new adaptation for radio of 'Hamlet', which was in rehearsal for several months and used some of the best of Hong Kong's amateur dramatic talent.

Another great radio occasion for the English service was the visit of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, whose single per- formance at the Lee Theatre was broadcast by arrangement with the orchestra and the Hong Kong Music Society. Orchestras of this stature draw capacity audiences in Hong Kong and all seats were booked several weeks before the concert. Technically the broadcast was a difficult one; never before had there been an opportunity to work with an orchestra of this calibre or size, and since no rehearsal for balancing purposes was possible the placing of the single condenser microphone had to be worked out the- oretically. The result however was a triumph for the engineers.

The Macau Grand Prix has been covered each year since it began, but not until 1959 was it possible, by combining the re- sources of Radio Hong Kong, Rediffusion and the Hong Kong Commercial Broadcasting Company, to give listeners a running commentary of the race around its entire circuit of four miles. A comprehensive system of commentary points and a lines net- work was established, which enabled any commentator to be brought in at a moment's notice by the producer in the grandstand. The main coverage of the weekend's racing was in English, but Radio Hong Kong's Chinese commentators recorded eyewitness accounts which were broadcast as half-hour features on each of the two days. The transmitter and studio facilities of Radio Vila Verde were again most generously made available.

The United Kingdom General Election was given extensive coverage by the English Service, which set up an Election opera- tions room to provide up to the minute results using both the B.B.C. and Reuters as sources of news.

Another major highlight of the year was the broadcasting of a series of six illustrated talks in English on the history of Chinese