BBC World Service Television, which will be dropped from STAR TV next month, could reappear on Hong Kong screens via Wharf Cable as early as May.
Wharf Cable managing director Stephen Ng Tin-hoi said yesterday the network had approached the BBC at the end of last week about carrying four hours of news a day on a new international channel.
''The initial response from the BBC was favourable, although it is too early to make an announcement yet,'' he said.
Wharf had proposed four prime-time hours of BBC - providing breakfast news, lunchtime news, evening news and a late-night news programme - to be scheduled into the planned international channel, which will also carry news and entertainment programmes from Korea, France, the United States and China.
Mr Ng said he had made the proposal as soon as he heard last week that, after months of wrangling, STAR TV was dropping the BBC channel from its northern beam - covering Hong Kong, China, Korea and Japan - in favour of a pay-channel for Chinese-language movies.
Mr Ng said the decision on whether to extend BBC coverage to 24 hours a day on its own channel would be made by both parties later.
''At the moment we have a limit on how many channels we can have - and all 20 are just about spoken for,'' he said.