Mouthpiece or messenger?

Seventy-nine years after it went on air, the fate of the Radio Television Hong Kong is in the balance with the publication last Wednesday of a report by a government-appointed panel on our public broadcasting service.

Venturing into the political quagmire surrounding the future role of RTHK, the seven-member panel concluded its 71-page report with this bombshell: 'The committee does not favour the transformation of RTHK into a public broadcaster. Instead, it proposes the establishment of a new public broadcaster with a fresh start.'

The committee, chaired by veteran journalist Raymond Roy Wong, gave its verdict in mild but clear language as it affirmed the need for a public broadcasting service and ruled out RTHK as being that new broadcaster. The damning demerits for RTHK, as far as the committee was concerned, were its entrenched structure and culture and the difficulty of getting staff to make such a transition.

'In short, a sea change in RTHK's status is bound to be fraught with practical and insurmountable problems, and not conducive to the start-up of a new public broadcaster,' the report read.

Given the fact the government is unlikely to finance two public broadcasters with similar functions, pundits believed RTHK will be drastically downsized or merged with the Information Services Department if the government decides to launch a new public-service broadcaster.

Not surprisingly, RTHK management and the staff union reacted swiftly and expressed disappointment that the report did not discuss RTHK's future. Its director, Chu Pui-hing, maintained that transforming RTHK was the best option. The minister in charge of broadcasting, Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology Joseph Wong Wing-ping, said the government remained open-minded.

At the government-run broadcaster, staff could still indulge in a bit of gallows humour, likening their fate to that of the old Star Ferry pier in Central, but it was a rare light note in an otherwise gloomy atmosphere.