PUBLICATIONS, BROADCASTING AND FILMS
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yards of installation cabling. Distribution is from thirteen sub- stations to 26 kiosks, from which 175 feeders radiate to approxi- mately 53,000 loudspeakers. The parent company first operated thirty two years ago in the United Kingdom and now operates in many parts of the Commonwealth; the Hong Kong company, locally controlled, is part of this world-wide organization.
Rediffusion operates from the most modern studios in the Far East. They contain five sound studios, all air-conditioned, from which three simultaneous sound programmes go out daily from 7 a.m. to midnight, two networks ("Gold' & 'Silver') being in Chinese and one ('Blue') in English.
16% of Rediffusion programmes are commercially sponsored. The Chinese programmes offer music, news, drama, talks, sports, commentaries, women's features, children's shows, comedy, story- telling and theatre relays in Cantonese, Kuoyü, Swatow, Hakka, Shanghai and other dialects. The English service gives continuous daily broadcasts of musical entertainment, plays, studio shows, news, BBC and other relays, sports events, stock-market news, features for women and children, and much else. During 1960 Rediffusion charity broadcasts raised nearly half-a-million dollars for needy families. Rediffusion employs 510 local staff of whom 98% are Chinese, in addition to a great many musicians, soloists, story-tellers and dramatic artists.
Rental for a loudspeaker is $10 per month, and subscribers have a constant choice of the three programmes which, together, involve the origination of 51 hours of programmes each day.
Television. Rediffusion (Hong Kong) Ltd opened the first televi- sion service in any British Colony in May 1957, and the service has been growing ever since. At the end of 1960 there were almost 7,000 subscribers.
Rediffusion House has two well equipped studios for this closed- circuit network, each of about 2,000 square feet, and one other of 200 square feet, while the equipment includes 9 vidicon camera chains. Three of these are of the latest Marconi studio types and one is fitted with the modern Taylor-Hobson vidicon zoom lens. The station uses the latest telecine-camera chains with double channels for both 16 mm and 35 mm films and has a full array of studio and control equipment. All Chinese films carry English captions and vice versa.
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