ENG-1961 — Page 326

PUBLICATIONS, BROADCASTING AND FILMS

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The bulk of Hong Kong's people now have access to sound radio, and are listening to a much greater extent than they were five years ago.

English Programme Service. The Head of the English Pro- gramme Service has a staff of six producers and five announcers, with clerical and record library staff. Two hundred contributors were employed during the year.

The English Service aims at providing the widest possible range of news, talks, documentaries, drama, music, comedy and coverage of Hong Kong affairs to all sections of its audience; this audience includes not only native English speakers, but a very large number of English-speaking Chinese, as well as listeners from many countries of Europe and Asia.

The Service increased its hours of broadcasting to seventeen a day in June 1960 and by the end of 1961 had eighteen months of all day broadcasting behind it. Another major change towards the end of 1960 was the replacement of part-time non-staff announcers by newly recruited staff announcers. This improved presentation of programmes, and with increased transmission hours gave the English Service in 1961 the opportunity to expand its range of programme production and to put into practice some long cherished ideas. In particular, the range of spoken word pro- grammes was greatly increased, the year starting with a series of six documentary programmes entitled 'Professional Portrait'. These programmes were part of an overall plan to use broadcasting to build bridges between Government and the people by ex- plaining and demonstrating the work of various Government Departments. Each 'Professional Portrait' took a single Govern- ment officer and outlined his work and his life in relation to the people he served. This series was followed by twenty one talks called 'The Government and the People'. The Colonial Secretary began the series with a talk on the organization of Government, and he was followed by Heads of Departments who described the work their Departments were doing. Continuing throughout the year, coverage was given in talks and interviews in the daily news programme 'Today' to topical Government activities; the census, the cholera outbreak, the construction of the City Hall, the fore- casting of typhoons, to name but a few, were dealt with in this

manner.