'You want to write a page on the traffic channel?' cried Christy Chan, Cable TV's astounded senior external affairs officer, when this story was first suggested. To which, as the executive editor of this magazine subsequently pointed out, the only possible response could be: 'You want to devote an entire channel to traffic?' The correct answer to that question is, in fact, no, not an entire channel - three entire channels. Late last autumn, alert subscribers to Cable TV may have noticed channel 62 was showing images of certain Kowloon streets. Sometimes those streets could look mean; sometimes, especially at night, they had a free-flowing, hypnotic beauty that probably appealed to insomniac couch-surfers. At any rate, Cable TV modestly kept this gem of programming under wraps. It was only when it started to appear on the television-listings information sent to this newspaper that its unheralded birth sidled into the limelight.
'It's a technical trial, not an audience trial,' explained Ronald Chiu, vice-president, news and sports, recently. 'We have to synchronise the images with Chinese characters.' Chiu is based at Cable TV Tower in Tsuen Wan, where a corridor is lined with stirring testimonies to the power of the media, such as: 'I believe it's the role of journalists to challenge people not to just mindlessly amuse them' (Carl 'Watergate' Bernstein, fearless even in the face of a split infinitive) and 'News is something people don't know they're interested in until they hear about it' (Reuven Frank, former NBC News president). Frank's opinion may soon apply to the traffic channel once word filters out, but it has to be said that of the 20 or so screens on display in the lobby of Cable TV Tower not one was tuned to Kowloon's thoroughfares. 'There are more than 70 channels on the network,' said Chiu about this curious oversight. 'We can only choose the more watchable.'
As compensation, he turned on the TV in his office and Princess Margaret Road came into view, followed by Waterloo Road, then - 'It keeps switching, every five or six seconds' - Lung Cheung Road, all of which seemed to be having an uncongested afternoon. Information appeared in Chinese, which Chiu read out: 'There's a temporary restriction for vehicles over eight metres - they can't turn right into Portland Street.'
The genesis of the traffic channel lies in the fact that digital compression allows Cable's system to carry 120 channels which, given that it operates only about 70, leaves a lot of scope for channel-filling. This also explains the otherwise staggering fact that Cable TV plans to devote one complete channel to Kowloon traffic, one to New Territories traffic and one to Hong Kong island traffic. The cameras are already in place, courtesy of the Transport Department, which uses them to monitor road situations. All that's required of Cable TV's technicians is an optic-fibre hook-up and some software to download information from the Transport Department's website.
This is cheap, convenient programming that comes under the pious banner of public service. 'We always ask ourselves how we can better serve our viewers,' said Chiu. He wasn't being sanctimonious. In fact, the more he talked about the new channels, the more obligingly droll he became in his enthusiasm. 'We've got a weather channel on trial now too,' he announced.
He began fiddling with his handset. After a while he said, 'Can you believe I'm in the television business and I can't master these controls? Where am I? I'm lost! Let me search.' Images from other channels flickered past: Legco, Eddie Murphy and - 'Okay, a woman massaging a guy's nipples, okay, sorry, it's the adult channel, sorry, it's supposed to be locked, want to sample it? I'll
