The Hong Kong Broadcasting Scene - 2 The Broadcasting Landscape
2.1 Number of Licensees2.2 Number of Channels 2.3 Number of Broadcast Hours
2.4 Number of Hours of Station Productions
1 History2 The Broadcasting Landscape3 Transmission Modes4 Penetration of Different Broadcasting Services5 Broadcasting revenues6 Investment in TV Industry7 Viewing Habits8 Programme Sources9 Programme Genres10 Programmes and Channels for Minority Ethnic Groups in Hong Kong11 New Advertising Modes12 Compliance with Regulatory Requirements13 Developments of Pay TV Services in Hong Kong14 Hong Kong as a Regional Broadcasting Hub15 Hong Kong as a Stepping Stone into the Mainland Market

2.2 Number of Channels

As at August 2004, the domestic free, domestic pay and non-domestic television programme service licensees together provided 228 television channels3, of which 184 channels were receivable in Hong Kong, representing an increase of 57% and 64% respectively over the previous year.

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.

Following the commencement of PCCW Media's "now Broadband TV" and Galaxy's "ex-TV" services during the year under review, the number of total pay television channels3 offered by the three domestic pay television programme service licensees increased significantly from 82 to 163 over the previous year.

The number of television channels offered by the non-domestic television programme service licensees also slightly increased from 59 to 61 over the previous year. The number of channels available for Hong Kong viewers provided by non-domestic TV licensees decreased from 26 to 17, mainly due to the termination of the service of Pacific Satellite International Limited (Pacific Satellite).

The changes in the number of television channels during the period from August 2000 to August 2004 are shown in figure 4.

Figure 3 :  Television Channels Provided by Licensees in Hong Kong

Picture

 

Figure 4 :  Number of Channels Provided by Non-Domestic Television Programme Service Licensees

Picture

The number of radio channels remained unchanged at 13. All channels were broadcast round-the-clock. 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).

3licensees at the same time, and were counted more than once accordingly.

 

top