PRESS, BROADCASTING AND CINEMA
181
music and five Chinese channels). Two of the three organisations are commercial and the other is a Government operated station. There are an estimated 1,500,000 radio receivers in use in the Colony.
Radio Hong Kong broadcasts separate Chinese and English Programme Services, on AM and FM. It is financed from general revenue and carries no advertising. The aim of the Government broadcasting service is to provide balanced programmes with emphasis on information and public affairs programmes. Govern- ment broadcasting also plays an important role in assisting the development of better mutual understanding of the problems and attitudes of the different communities who make up the Colony's society. As a result of an Audience Research Survey carried out for both the English and Chinese Services a number of programme schedules were revised and the FM/AM split confined only to the evening hours from 8.25 p.m. to 11.15 p.m.
Commercial Radio broadcasts two Chinese programme services and one English on AM from studios at present situated in the Yau Yat Chuen area of Kowloon. During the year, work began on the construction of a new studio centre in Broadcast Drive, Kowloon, where Radio Hong Kong and the two television čom- panies also have their headquarters.
In addition to public affairs programmes there are many serious and light music programmes included in the schedules of both organisations, with comprehensive news and weather services throughout the day. Transmission hours were increased late this year. Both Commercial Radio and Radio Hong Kong now open daily at 6 a.m. and close down at 1 a.m.
The wired sound service of Rediffusion (Hong Kong) Ltd-a locally controlled subsidiary of the organisation which operates in Britain and in many other Commonwealth countries-is dis- tributed throughout the urban areas of Hong Kong and Kowloon and to many outlying areas in the New Territories by more than 1,500 miles of trunk lines and another 4,000 miles of installation cabling.
At the end of the year there were 40,000 loudspeakers connected to these sound services offering a choice of four programmes.
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.