RTHK - History

History

The Hong Kong Government launched their first radio broadcasting in June 1928. They named it under the call-sign “GOW”. Several name changes occurred over the next few years, until in 1948, when it was given the name "Radio Hong Kong" (RHK) (香港廣播電台).

In 1949, broadcasting operations were taken over by the Government Information Services (GIS), but by 1954, RHK managed to establish itself as a separate department, becoming independent of GIS.

Up until 1966, RHK was on-air only for three periods during the day: morning, lunchtime, and evening. This was partly due to many presenters being part-time freelancers who had to fit their radio appearances in with their normal daily working schedule.

In 1969 the station's medium wave AM transmitting station was moved from a waterfront site in Hung Hom to the summit of Golden Hill in the New Territories. Although the new transmitters were much more powerful, the mountain-top site proved unsuitable for medium wave transmissions and reception in some areas has remained problematic ever since.

In March 1969, RHK moved to new purpose-built studios located at Broadcasting House (廣播大廈) in Kowloon Tong.

A Public Affairs Television Unit was established in 1970 to produce TV programmes that the independent commercial stations were – and still are – required to broadcast under the terms of their licences. RTHK has no television broadcast transmitters of its own.

RTHK was finally permitted to set up its own radio newsroom in 1973. Until then, all news was prepared by GIS staff. Until 1969 headlines were sent to the studios every half hour by teleprinter from the GIS headquarters in Central District, while the three daily full bulletins were delivered by hand by a messenger who carried them across Central District. This arrangement became impractical following the move to the new studios in 1969, so initially a GIS newsroom was set up in Broadcasting House. This arrangement also proved unsatisfactory and RHK's own journalists, who until then had been confined to producing magazine programmes, took over the entire news operation.

In 1976, the station's name was changed to "Radio Television Hong Kong" (RTHK) to reflect its new involvement in television programme production. In the same year, RTHK started to produce educational television programmes for schools after absorbing the previously independent Educational Television Unit. In 1986, RTHK TV headquarters moved across the road to the former Commercial Television studios, which were renamed Television House. The station's first News and Financial News channel, Radio 7, was established in November 1989. In 1994 the radio and television programmes were put online on the RTHK website.