ENG-1994 — Page 418

COMMUNICATIONS AND THE MEDIA

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will only be carried on the northern beam, and the Indian and Indonesian music on the southern beam.

British Forces Broadcasting Service

The British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) is part of the Services Sound and Vision Corporation, a worldwide organisation providing entertainment, information and training films, video, and broadcast television and radio services for the British Forces, under contract to the Ministry of Defence.

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BFBS provides two radio services in Hong Kong, designed for the particular needs of the English and Gurkha service audiences.

Nepali programmes, broadcast for 90 hours each week from Sek Kong in the New Territories, cater for the Brigade of Gurkhas, providing music and features reflecting daily life with the brigade in Hong Kong, as well as providing news from Nepal and other Gurkha units throughout the British Army.

The English-language channel broadcasts 24 hours-a-day from both Sek Kong, and the Prince of Wales Barracks in Central. This service includes music, hourly news, reviews, sports coverage, quizzes and phone-in competitions. Extensive use is made of a satellite circuit from London to relay the news and BBC programmes such as The World This Weekend and Sport on Radio 5.

BFBS London has a brief to keep its overseas listeners in touch with home, and provides live overnight and weekend programmes to Hong Kong, and a number of specialist music programmes presented by some of Britain's leading broadcasting personalities.

BFBS is essentially a welfare service, and stations around the world join together each year to raise money for the Wireless for the Blind appeal and other charities.

Broadcasting Authority

The regulation of television and radio broadcasting in Hong Kong is the responsibility of the Broadcasting Authority, a statutory body established in 1987. The authority has 12 members, nine of whom are appointed non-official members representing a cross-section of the community, and three of whom are government officers. Its major function is to secure proper programme, advertising and technical standards for broadcasting licensees, through provisions in the Television Ordinance, the Telecommunication Ordinance and the Broadcasting Authority Ordinance. These licensees include the two commercial radio stations, one satellite television broadcaster, one subscription television operator and the two commercial television stations.

The licences of the two commercial television stations were renewed for a period of 12 years in December 1988, subject to further renewal by the Governor in Council on or after December 1, 1994. One major task of the authority in the year under review was to conduct a mid-term review of these licences prior to such renewal. The authority examined and evaluated the licensees' performance against the various statutory requirements and licence conditions, and a television broadcasting survey and three public hearings were conducted for the purpose of the review. The views of the public and the rapidly changing broadcasting environment were taken into consideration in the process. At the end of the year, the authority recommended to the Governor in Council that the two licences be renewed for a period expiring on November 30, 2000, subject to certain amendments to the licence