ENG-1960 — Page 310

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PUBLICATIONS, BROADCASTING AND FILMS

To assist the Government's campaign against narcotics the Chinese Service not only broadcast plays and features with themes stressing the disastrous effects of drug addiction, but also organized in May a special anti-narcotics concert by a troupe of famous local artists, including Messrs Ho Fei-fan and Leong Sing-por and Miss Ng Kwan-lai. This was broadcast on 1st June, and was such a success that two well-known Chinese organizations, the Siulamese Association and the Shun Tak Fraternal Association, were each inspired to produce an anti-narcotics play which was broadcast over Radio Hong Kong and Rediffusion.

Transcriptions of various Radio Hong Kong programmes in Chinese were supplied to Radio Malaya, Radio Sarawak and Radio Singapore.

Both the Chinese and the English Services broadcast Protestant and Roman Catholic church services each Sunday, and broadcast appeals and special concerts for charities raised considerable sums of money.

In 1959 Radio Hong Kong became for the first time a principal contributor to the Festival of Arts. This year the Chinese Service contributed no less than 18 programmes. These included plays selected from entries to a short story competition, features on the great painters and calligraphers of ancient China, a Chinese literary quiz, and two concerts. A concert of Chinese instrumental music, which proved so popular last year, was also broadcast on a larger scale. Bernard Shaw's 'Pygmalion' was broadcast as a contribution from the English Service.

Technical facilities generally were further improved during the year. Electronic reverberation equipment has replaced the original echo chamber. With this new equipment an echo delay of one to five seconds, giving an effect of a small hall on the shorter echo to one of a large empty cathedral on the larger echo, can be achieved by remote control. Full-track tape recorders have now been introduced for higher quality reproduction and twin-track tape recorders-reproducers will be used for experimenting with stereo broadcasting. Both the Chinese and English continuity control rooms have been provided with automatic 'sequential' monitoring for the immediate detection of faults in either the MW or FM transmissions.