Variety spices up World's new look
PEARL is not the only channel making changes to its English-language broadcasting to ensure that satellite and cable television fight hard for a market share. World has now revealed its plans for the coming season and 1994.
''We've built up to an average weekly audience rating of 43 per cent,'' said World programme manager Hung Shuen Shuen. ''Next year we want it to be 50-50 (with Pearl).'' One of the ways the station is looking to improve those ratings is through more bilingual viewing. ''Access to Nicam is increasing all the time. So we're going to use it more and more.'' The channel is also going for greater variety, both in terms of movies - ''less action, more quality'' - and documentaries - ''fewer wildlife subjects and more topical''.
Probably World's biggest blockbuster coup is securing the rights to Steven Spielberg's all-time classic E.T. The Extraterrestrial. Despite being 11-years-old, the film has never been released for broadcast on TV in Hong Kong before.
More recent movies include Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), a charming adaptation of Fannie Flagg's book about two feisty female in 1920s and 1930s America, starring Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, Mary Stuart Masterson and Mary Louise Parker.
The censors will be given something to think about in Henry and June, Philip Kaufman's adaptation of the diaries of Anais Nin (Maria de Medeiros) dealing mainly with her affair with author Henry Miller (gorgeous, balding Fred Ward) and his wife June (UmaThurman). The film's depictions of horny Paris around 1931 prompted the creation of the new NC-17 rating in the US.
The censors are also likely to be up in arms over the ripe language that permeates Do The Right Thing, Spike Lee's eye-opening observation of the build-up of racist hostilities on a sweltering summer's day in Brooklyn. Virtually every other word containsfour syllables, the first two of which are mother. Trying to dub it all out would not only be a mammoth undertaking but would render the movie ridiculous.
Less controversial are Billy Bathgate (1991), a gangster movie starring Dustin Hoffman, Nicole Kidman and Bruce Willis; William Hurt in The Doctor (1992); Havana (1990) with Robert Redford and Lena Olin; and the comedy What About Bob? (1992) starring Bill Murray.
In addition to E.T., younger viewers can look forward to the likes of An American Tail II, the further escapades of Fievel the cartoon mouse, and The Rocketeer, an adventure yarn starring the current James Bond, Timothy Dalton.
Mrs Hung said World would continue to show some wildlife documentaries in 1994 since they are popular in Hong Kong, but the channel wanted to widen the scope of its documentaries and, with this in mind, had purchased 140 hours worth from the BBC. Subjects range from the influence of advertisers in The Persuaders of Power to recent attempts on Mount Everest in The Climbers.
THERE'S also a Clive James' series, in which the Australian wit looks at how modern-day celebrities like Marilyn Monroe, Princess Di, etc, are treated.
On the news front, World is changing its morning line-up to include more regional coverage. From Monday, the station will open at 6.30am with CNN World News in English. Then from 6.55am this will be mixed with a live bulletin of local news, and reports from CCTV and Taiwan News all in Mandarin. This format will be followed Mondays through Saturdays.
Sports coverage for 1994, takes in live coverage of Wimbledon, the Rugby Sevens and the soccer World Cup (also being covered by Pearl) and weekly basketball matches from America's NBA (also shown on STAR's Prime Sports channel).
