Rediffusion Television

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For the defunct ITV contractor in London, see Associated-Rediffusion.
Rediffusion
Type Government Franchised[1]
Founded 1949 (radio)
1957 (television)
Headquarters Flag of Hong Kong British Hong Kong
Industry Radio broadcasting
Television broadcasting

Rediffusion Television (RTV) (麗的電視有限公司) was the first television station in Hong Kong, established in 1957, making it both the first British colony and the first predominantly Chinese city to have television.[2] It began as a radio station in 1949 and became ATV by 1982.

[edit] History

"Radio Rediffusion" was officially founded in 1949 as a highly successful wired radio station run by the Rediffusion company.[2] It was known by the Chinese name 麗的呼聲. The radio service was highly successful with its main competitor Commercial Radio. Some of the early contents included plays, stories, concerts and Cantonese operas. The broadcasts were some of the main attraction in Hong Kong tea shops. One of the most famous broadcaster was Li Ngaw.[1] The other was Uncle Ray the pioneering DJ.

It later became a subscription cable TV station on May 29, 1957 under the Chinese name 麗的映聲 (pinyin: li4 de5 ang3 sheng1), thus becoming the first TV station in a British colony, as well as the first TV station in a predominantly Chinese city. The content at the time was black-and-white, using the British 405-line television system. It initially offered a four-hour-per-day English language service; a Chinese language channel was added in 1963. The monthly fee during its launch was HK$25, which was expensive at the time. [3] Hong Kong tea shops once again provided an outlet for the broadcasts to the working class who could not afford the subscription fees. When competitor TVB made its first free-to-air broadcast in 1967, RTV had 67,000 subscribers.[2] In April 1973, it was offered a free-to-air television broadcasting license, which ended its fifteen-year cable service in October 1973. Later in December 1973, it was renamed to Rediffusion Television Limited or RTV (麗的電視有限公司). In 1982 it was renamed to Asia Television Limited.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Evans, Grant. Tam, Maria. [1997] (1997). Hong Kong: the anthropology of a Chinese metropolis. ISBN 0700706011
  2. ^ a b c Kitley, Philip. [2003] (2003). Television, Regulation and Civil Society in Asia. Routledge. ISBN 0415297338
  3. ^ (Chinese) http://www.rthk.org.hk/broadcast75/topic03a.htm RTHK website on 75 years of broadcasting in Hong Kong