THE quality of television and radio programmes produced by RTHK would suffer if the government broadcaster were the victim of any more budget cuts, the Deputy Director of Broadcasting, Mr Chu Pui-hing, warned yesterday.
RTHK was already producing only the ''bare essentials'', said Mr Chu.
''We are really down to the very minimum that a public broadcaster should be doing - producing just 10 hours of television per week while we have been forced to merge two radio channels for three hours a day.'' said Mr Chu.
''This is against the contemporary concept of running a radio station with a clear identity.'' Over the past three years, RTHK's budget has been reduced by 16 per cent in real terms, according to RTHK management.
This meant the quantity of television programmes had been slashed by 16 per cent, while radio air time had been cut by 8.4 per cent.
