MR CHAN CHUN-YING (in Cantonese):
President, Mr LUK Chung-hung’s question asks for information about the broadcasting of programmes on local sports events over the past three years, but the Bureau provides only information about the numbers of hours devoted by TVB, HKTVE and RTHK to the broadcasting of sports programmes in the past one year.
Can I ask whether the Bureau has ever compiled any statistics on the proportion of such sports programmes in these television broadcasters’ total numbers of broadcasting hours? How does the proportion compare with those in other major cities, such as New York, London and Singapore?
SECRETARY FOR COMMERCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (in Cantonese):
President, both the existing Broadcasting Ordinance and the relevant licensing conditions do not require holders of free television licences to provide information about the broadcasting of local sports events, and I have provided information about the past one year in this regard. The Honourable Member has mentioned the total hours of broadcasting sports programmes. As we can see, since television broadcasters broadcast programmes 24 hours a day, we can actually compute the answer simply by looking at the number of hours devoted to the broadcasting of sports programmes in a particular day. If the Honourable Member wants to get other information or the broadcasting information of other places, we may provide a written reply to his question later. (Appendix I)