ENG-1959 — Page 329

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HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT

At the end of 1959 a total of more than 4,000 subscribers had been reached.

Equipment includes the latest Pye telecine-camera chains with double channels for both 16 mm. and 35 mm. films and a full complement of studio and control equipment. All Chinese films carry English captions and vice versa.

Programmes are produced in air-conditioned studios, and these include many 'live' presentations such as Cantonese operas, dance orchestras, night-club acts, children's features, and interviews. The most popular filmed television shows have been imported from the United Kingdom and America for local transmission, and six full-length feature) films are televised each week. Rediffusion tele- vision programmes provide approximately forty hours of wired television weekly, and some of the television periods are com- mercially sponsored. Outside broadcasts include many sports and special events, and a local and international newsreel is provided each evening. Personalities who appeared on Hong Kong television in 1959 included Richard Mason, Virginia Kellogg, Brigitte de Beaufond, Peter Cooper, Maurice Claire, William A. Hyman, Hugh Perceval, Jean Negulesco, Joan Manning, Basil Smallpiece, King Merritt, Ilka Chase and many others.

More than 97% of the television staff are locally-trained Chinese. The rental fee is $55 per month, including receiving unit and all maintenance. For subscribers who own their own television sets, adapted to receive Rediffusion programmes, the monthly rental is $25.

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FILM INDUSTRY

The Hong Kong film industry maintains a high rate of output of films in Chinese. There are eight major producing studios, as well as a large number of small production companies which rent studio space as they require it. Two hundred and forty six locally- produced feature films were submitted to the Panel of Film Censors which approves all films before local exhibition; 72 of them had sound-tracks in Mandarin, 171 in Cantonese and three were in other Chinese dialects. Hong Kong companies are known to have financed a number of films produced in part in Taiwan, Singapore and Japan.