ENG-1968 — Page 284

212

PRESS, BROADCASTING AND CINEMA

The building of a special news studio in Hong Kong enabled more to be done in the way of local coverage and news bulletins. A public service Morning Report was inaugurated consisting of daily reports from the Essential Services, i.e., the Police Force, the Fire Services, the Marine Department, and Civil Aviation, broad- cast by members of the departments.

'Dateline Hong Kong', an evening news magazine programme, was extended as was the service to investors on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. A summary of the previous day's closing from the New York Stock Exchange was broadcast at 8.30 a.m. and 9 a.m. direct from New York.

From the end of April, a Pop Music_format was adopted daily between 4 p.m. and 10 p.m. in which local groups and artists took part. Serious music was not neglected, however, and the nightly recorded concert, Symphony Hall, continued to build its audience. Many broadcasts of visiting and local artists were done live' from the City Hall.

There was emphasis in the 2nd Chinese Service on programmes for youth. For example, a 120-minute 'Youth Time' was broadcast from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays to Fridays. Relays of Cantonese operas, Music Festival prize-winning concerts and the concert given by the Hong Kong Youth Orchestra, continued to be extremely popular.

A series of 120 half-hour programmes on Chinese, English and Mathematics were broadcast early this year. Text-books covering the whole 120 courses were sold to the public at cost, and 29,214 copies of same were sold within two months. Local leading Chinese newspapers carried the text of 'Practical Mandarin'.

The wired sound service of Rediffusion (Hong Kong) Ltd is dis- tributed to practically all the urban areas and to many outlying villages in the islands and the New Territories by more than 1,000 miles of main trunk lines and another 3,000 miles of installation cabling. At the end of the year there were 30,000 loudspeakers connected to these sound services which offer a choice of four programmes. The three Chinese programmes broadcast a total of 45 hours daily. The Silver and Gold networks each broadcast 17 hours daily, offering news, music and other programmes in a variety of dialects. The third Chinese programme broadcasts from 7 a.m.