04-004 Radio broadcast in Hong Kong

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

Image Source: Wikipedia

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 1^st 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 3^rd 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 1^st 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.

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