04-004
Radio broadcast in Hong Kong
After talking about the big screens and the small screens, I am now moving onwards to talk about broadcast
without a screen. Well, I mean radio.
Radio
Yes, sure, we have radio here.
Actually, radio broadcast has started since almost a century ago. And our first
radio station, GOW, is still broadcasting today.
Same as many other countries, we
have our heydays of radio broadcast. Everyone was listening to radio. It was
the 60s and the 70s. Factories were everywhere at that time. Factory owners
allow workers to listen to radio at work, as a sort of welfare. Cantonese radio
dramas were so popular that they attracted more audiences than TV dramas.
Not so now. People are all
asking for big TV with 4K or even 8K resolution. Entertainment without a screen
is just not entertaining enough. Drivers and cooks are among the last group of
people where you can find some loyalty. Watching cellphones while driving or
cooking would be dangerous. Listening to radio seems to be okay. Radios are
also common in barber shops. Apart from these, I can hardly think of a fourth
scenario.
A shrinking of audiences makes
radio broadcast difficult to survive. All radio stations in Hong Kong are just
hanging on. We have technically 4 radio stations operating in the territory,
one operated by the government, 2 commercial stations and 1 underground
station. Together, they are broadcasting 15 different channels.
Analogue broadcast
Radio broadcast in Hong Kong still
uses the traditional way, AM and FM. We did tried to introduce digital
broadcast but the plan flopped. I will tell you the reasons but before that,
let me first list out all existing radio stations and channels.
4 radio stations, 15 radio
channels
Radio Television Hong Kong
(RTHK)
RTHK is the public broadcasting service in Hong Kong. GOW, the predecessor to RTHK, was established in 1928 as the first broadcasting service here. RTHK is a government department under the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau. It currently operates 8 channels.
RTHK Radio 1 (FM 92.6 ~ 94.4 MHz)
A Cantonese radio channel
focusing on news, politics, world and local information, finance, education and
other general topics.
RTHK Radio 2 (FM 94.8 ~ 96.9 MHz)
Another Cantonese radio channel
focus on more leisure topics, such as music, movie, pop stars, artists, trendy
topics, cultural topics, etc.
RTHK Radio 3 (AM 567 kHz)
The successor of Hong Kong’s
first radio channel GOW, RTHK Radio 3 is the only English channel of RTHK that
provides programmes on news, politics, world and local information, finance,
music, pop stars, trendy topics, religion, etc. Yes, it broadcasts programmes
in almost every topics. To take care the minorities in Hong Kong, there are
also programmes in Nepali, Urdu and Tagalog.
RTHK Radio 4 (FM 97.6 ~ 98.9 MHz)
A bilingual music channel, RTHK
provides programmes of fine music and arts topics here. How can an FM radio
channel broadcast in bilingual? It is easy. The presenter will first speak in
Cantonese and then repeat what he or she has just said in English, or vice
versa.
RTHK Radio 5 (AM 783 kHz)
Radio 5 is the only Cantonese
channel in Hong Kong that is broadcasted in AM. Programmes mainly focus on
elders and Chinese operas. There are also programmes for youth and family, as
well as religious broadcasts.
RTHK Putonghua Channel (AM 621 kHz)
A Mandarin radio channel
focusing on news, politics, world and local information, finance, education and
other general topics.
CNR/HK (AM 675 kHz)
Used to be a relay channel of
BBC World Service, after the rising tension between the China and UK
governments, the channel switched to relay China National Radio (CNR)’s “Voice
of Hong Kong”. Voice of Hong Kong is a Mandarin and Cantonese channel with
news, cultural and music programmes.
CMG/RGB (FM 102.8 MHz)
This is the newest radio channel
that just started broadcasting on 1st July, 2022. It is a relay
channel of CNR’s “Radio The Greater Bay”. It broadcasts using the same
frequency as the underground radio station uses. It is only receivable in some
areas of Hong Kong, mainly the urban areas on both sides of Victoria Harbour.
Commercial Radio Hong Kong
(CRHK)
Established in 1959, CRHK is the
most popular and probably the only profitable commercial radio stations in Hong
Kong. It now operates 3 channels.
CR1 (FM 88.1 ~ 89.6 MHz)
The most popular radio channel
in Hong Kong, CR1 provides news, politics, finance, information, music and
entertainment programmes. Language is Cantonese.
CR2 (FM 90.3 ~ 92.1 MHz)
CR2 focuses on more leisure
topics, such as pop music, movies and other entertainment news. It targets on
younger generation audiences. CR2 is also known for organising one of the four
Hong Kong annual music awards, in which the prizes are awarded to the singers
according to how often their songs are plugged. Language is Cantonese.
AM 864 (AM 864 kHz)
Due to license agreement, CRHK
is required to also broadcast a channel in English. AM 864, as its name
suggests, broadcasts in AM. It is a channel with minimal investment. Apart from
the news section broadcasts at the beginning of every hour, all remaining air
times are only music broadcast.
Metro Broadcast Corporation
Limited
As a subsidiary of the Hong Kong
conglomerate CK Hutchison Holdings, Metro Broadcast was established in 1991. It
became the second commercial radio stations in the territory. It now operates 3
channels. Ever since the start of its broadcast, Metro Broadcast is never a
success, at least not financially. Numerous reformations have been taken place
in its just over 3 decades of its broadcast history.
Metro Info (FM 99.7 ~ 102.1 MHz)
The name of this channel has
been changed numerous time but its theme remains. It focuses on music and
entertainment and produces hourly news information as required by the license.
It broadcasts in Cantonese.
Metro Finance (FM 102.4 ~ 106.3 MHz)
As its name suggested, this
channel mainly focuses on financial news. Only on weekends when the stock
market is closed, you can hear programmes in other topics such as health,
travel, leisure, family and youth, etc. Language is Cantonese.
Metro Plus (AM 1044 kHz)
AM radio channel in English
simply goes nowhere in this Cantonese dominant city. But compare to CRHK’s
AM864, we can see more investments are put into this channel. On every Sundays,
there are hours long Christian broadcast. There are also programmes in Tagalog
and Bahasa in different days of the week for Filipino and Indonesian minorities
living in Hong Kong. News and weather announcements in English are also
available.
Citizens' Radio
Citizens' Radio is a radio station in Hong Kong established by pro-democracy camp figure Tsang Kin Shing. The station is run as a non-profit organization. It now operates only 1 channel, underground. The station has been repeatedly raided by the Telecommunications Authority since but it kept on broadcasting as a form of civil disobedience.
FM1028 (FM 102.8 MHz)
It started trial broadcasting on
3rd October 2005 on 102.8 MHz FM. The regular broadcasting hours are
7:00 pm–12:00 pm from Monday to Friday.
They only have a small
transmitter located on the rooftop of a factory building in Chai Wan. Programmes
can be heard in parts of Hong Kong Island, most of Kowloon, and on the
Internet. I have successfully picked up their signal in Chai Wan using a
handheld radio. But since the launch of the RTHK relay channel of CMG/RGB using
the same broadcast frequency in July, I am not sure if FM1028 can still be
heard now.
All radio channels in Hong Kong,
except FM1028, broadcasts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. But during midnights,
most minor channels only simulcast their sister channels’ programmes. And even
for those main channels, many only play preprogrammed music, with no presenters
at all.
All channels are simulcasted on
internet and can be listened through mobile apps. But due to copyright issue,
some of the programmes or channels can only be accessed by IP addresses from
Hong Kong.
Why digital radio broadcast flopped
in Hong Kong?
On 1st December,
2020, Hong Kong has followed the international trend to switched off our
analogue TV signals. Some countries in the world have successfully switched
their radio broadcast from AM or FM to digital. Not so for radio broadcast
here. We did introduced digital radio broadcast in DAB+ format in early 2011.
But digital radio was never a success and the plan flopped after 6 years of introduction.
Why digital radios success in some countries but not in Hong Kong? Below are
the reasons.
First, radio broadcast is never
a money making business in Hong Kong. Except CRHK, none other commercial radio
stations ever managed to make a profit here. A business without profit simply
couldn’t sustain.
Second, there is no one radio
for all channels. Ever since the first day of digital TV broadcast in Hong
Kong, all 4 existing analogue TV channels were simulcasted in digital. That
means if you had a digital TV at that time, you were already able to watch all
existing analogue TV channels in the first day, plus lots of newly introduced
digital channels. That gives people motivation to buy a new TV.
Not so for radio broadcast. All 6
analogue channels of CRHK and Metro were not simulcasted in digital. That means
with a digital radio on hand, you will miss many of those old programmes. And
it happens that those are the most popular radio channels in Hong Kong.
Third, compare to PAL vs 1080i
on TV broadcast, the difference between sound qualities on radio broadcasts is
not that significant. I did a little research on this topic. The so-called “perfect
sound” produced by a CD has a sampling rate of 44.1kHz and a frequency response
up to 22.05kHz. There is no sampling rates for AM or FM as signals are analogue
but frequency response still matters. Frequency response for AM is only 4.5kHz.
FM can reach 15kHz. Digital broadcast? That is even more complicated as it
depends on compression rate as well. But a study by comparing different waveforms
shows DAB+ broadcast is similar to soundwaves with a frequency response of
18kHz.
Yes, DAB+ is better than FM and
far better than AM. It provides a sound quality very close to that of a CD. But
the quality of radio programme is more important than the quality of sound. And
most people listen to radio in a noisy environment, inside a kitchen or in a
vehicle. That little differences in sound quality are not convincing enough for
people to buy a new radio.
Internet hammered down the final
nail of the coffin. All radio channels broadcasting in Hong Kong started simulcasting
their programmes on internet long before the introduction of digital broadcast.
Their mobile apps provide programmes with sound quality comparable to CD, even
for those AM channels. And radio streaming takes up much less data than video
streaming and became popular since a decade ago. In fact, most people now listen
to radio through mobile apps instead of through real radio. That technically bypasses
all differences between AM, FM and DAB+. Furthermore, this trend provides rooms
for enormous internet radio stations to flock into the already competitive
market. I myself listen to “radio” every night before sleep but the “radio” I
listen to is not a real radio. It is an internet podcast by my favorite
presenter.
Telephone broadcasting
Same as TV broadcast, there are
4 normal ways to transmit a radio programme, terrestrial, satellite, cable and
internet. Satellite radio never exists here. Radio Rediffusion (Hong Kong)
broadcasted through their cable network from 1949 till 1973 and then closed
down due to loss in competition. AM & FM broadcasts are listed above and
internet radio stations are enormous. However, someone thought of a fifth way
of delivering radio programmes to his audience, by telephone line.
Telephone line has a very high
penetration rate. Although more and more people opted to cellphones or voice
over IP nowadays, plain old telephone services (POTS) are still the most
available and reliable network. As radio programmes do not consist of any
image, it is absolutely possible to transmit them through telephone line.
In fact, telephone broadcasting
is not any new technique. France had a telephone broadcast network since the
late nineteenth century. The service was called Théâtrophone, which allows
audiences to listen to opera through telephone line. The system operated until
the beginning of WWII.
Théâtrophone
Image Source: Wikipedia
Albert Cheng, the founder and
the ex-chairman of Digital Broadcasting Corporation (DBC) ran
into a major argument with other shareholders as he insisted on an independent
editorial policy that is critical of government failings. He left DBC in late
2012 and founded D100 Radio, an online multimedia operation.
Since many of Albert’s audiences
are elders and not familiar with smart phones or even have no internet access
at home, Albert thought of an idea of broadcasting his programmes through
telephone lines. By dialing the phone number +852-1831100, one can listen to
D100 programmes. He even created a specially made easy-to-use “D100 telephone
radio”, targeting the elders. It is technically a landline phone with a speaker
and a preprogrammed dialing button. By just pressing one button, the “telephone
radio” will automatically dial the number and broadcast will begin after 10
seconds.
There is one drawback, however. Landline is very reliable but the sound quality is extremely poor. Frequency response of landline is only 3.3kHz. And it only supports mono channel. It is okay to use it for phone-in programmes. But for music programmes, it sounds like this:
The D100 phone number is still
working at the time of writing. But broadcast was cut down to evening
programmes only because of limited budget. In fact, RTHK also broadcasts on
telephone line. Their number is +852-22720000. You can listen to 7 channels of
RTHK by dialing this number. No real radio is needed, no mobile apps, no
internet, just your old granny landline phone will do.
This number also works from your
cellphone.
Caution: Air time applies and sound quality is the same as using
landline.
It also works from overseas.
Caution: International call applies!
Before finishing up this post, I summarized the sound qualities of different broadcasting ways for easy comparison.
Go back to the Lobby ...
