Why radio reshuffle should be welcome news for Hong Kong
China National Radio broadcasts should be seen as adding value despite critics claiming reduced BBC World Service coverage smacks of ‘mainlandisation’
The anti-mainland hysteria is getting ridiculous. A reshuffling of radio programmes on RTHK has led to a reduction in the amount of time the BBC World Service is given each day.
RTHK has also added the Hong Kong edition of China National Radio (CNR) to its FM service.
What’s more natural for a publicly funded station in Hong Kong to run – Putonghua programmes from a state-run radio service about the city and the mainland or the British public broadcaster?
Yet, some critics are crying censorship and “mainlandisation”. There is also an online petition calling for the full reinstatement of the BBC service and it had collected 1,086 signatures by yesterday morning.
Here is a report from a local news website, though it reads more like an opinion piece: “The CNR broadcast includes news, culture and lifestyle programming mostly in Mandarin – the language most commonly spoken in mainland China.
“Only some of its content is in Cantonese, which is the dominant language of Hong Kong, leading to criticism that this was another step towards the ‘mainlandisation’ of Hong Kong.”