2.2 Number of Channels

As at August 2005, the 18 domestic free, domestic pay and non-domestic television programme service licensees altogether provided 346 television channels², of which 260 channels were receivable in Hong Kong, representing an increase of 52% and 41% respectively over the previous year. An overview of channels provided by the television licensees is shown in Figure 3.

ATV and TVB each operates one Cantonese and one English language television service, respectively ATV Home and ATV World; and TVB Jade and TVB Pearl.

The number of total pay television channels² offered by the three domestic pay television programme service licensees increased significantly from 163 to 207 over the previous year, representing an increase of 27%.

The number of television channels offered by the non-domestic television programme service licensees increased by 121% from 61 to 135 over the previous year. There was a net increase of number of channels available for Hong Kong viewers provided by these licensees from 17 to 49 (an increase of 188%).

Figure 3 : Television Channels Provided by Licensees in Hong Kong

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The number of television channels provided by non-domestic television programme service licensees during the period from 2000 to 2005 are shown in Figure 4.

In addition to television channels provided by television programme service licensees in Hong Kong, Hong Kong people are free to receive unencrypted satellite television programme channels uplinked from outside Hong Kong. As at August 2005, there are more than 200 such free-to-air satellite television channels available for reception in Hong Kong via the Satellite Master Antenna Television (SMATV) systems. The list of channels currently available can be downloaded at http://www.ofta.gov.hk/datastat/st_smatv.pdf.

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The number of radio channels remained unchanged at 13. CRHK and Metro each operated two Cantonese channels, respectively CR1 and CR2; and Metro Showbiz and Metro Finance; and one English channel, respectively AM864 and Metro Plus, while RTHK provided seven radio channels, three in Cantonese (Radio 1, 2 and 5), two in English (Radio 3 and 6), one bilingual in English and Cantonese (Radio 4) and one in Putonghua (Radio 7). All channels mentioned above were broadcast round-the-clock.

²Some channels were provided by more than one licensee at the same time.