ENG-1959 — Page 327

276

HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT

programme production staff are British, two are Canadian and one is American.

Programmes of special interest included a relay of the 1959 Macau Grand Prix, done jointly with Radio Hong Kong and Rediffusion, a relay of Her Majesty the Queen's Christmas message and a special recording of a carol service from St. John's Cathedral sung by a Chinese choir of sixty voices. A special programme, 'Come Fly with Me', described a trip to the west coast of America by one of the contract artists. 'Christmas Around the World', a Christmas-day programme, was composed of Christmas music from different countries with greetings from members of the Consular Corps to all the people in Hong Kong on behalf of their communities. Transcribed programmes included "Theatre Time with Somerset Maugham', 'Les Miserables', 'Carter Brown Mystery Theatre', 'Alias the Baron', from Australia. 'Radio Canada 1959 Drama Series' gave a short description of Canada and her people as seen by a traveller, this feature being made available through the courtesy of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Local productions included 'Around the Cracker Barrel', a humorous programme of cowboy music produced by the staff, and ‘The Bing Crosby Story' produced by the Programme Director. Other pro- grammes were produced by local contributors.

Chinese Programme. The Chinese programme is headed by a Programme Director with four programme assistants and one con- tract artist, and has more than sixty contributors. During recent months twenty nine radio plays, thirty Chinese operas, une opera relayed from a theatre, forty nine sports programmes, thirty-eight interviews, eighteen stories told by individual story-tellers and thirty three serial dramatized plays were broadcast by the station. 105 spot announcements were made on behalf of local charities as well as 447 spot announcements for the Government and one radio play on 'Fire Prevention'. On December 9th a charity broadcast from the Prince's Theatre on behalf of the Tung Wah Group of hospitals raised $120,000 for the erection of a new wing to a hospi- tal, a record amount for a fund raising campaign by a local broad- casting organization.

REDIFFUSION

Sound Relay. Rediffusion (H.K.) Ltd. provides a popular wired broadcast service throughout the Colony, extending to practically