Radio Rediffusion was officially founded in 1949 as a
wired radio station run by the
Rediffusion company. The radio service was highly successful against its main competitor,
Commercial Radio. Some of the early contents included plays, stories, concerts and
Cantonese operas. The broadcasts were one of the main attractions in
Hong Kong tea shops. One of the most famous broadcasters was
Li Ngaw: another was
Uncle Ray, the pioneering DJ. It later became a subscription cable television station on 29 May 1957, becoming the first television station in a
colony of the
British Empire, as well as the first television station in a predominantly Chinese city. It initially offered a four-hour-per-day English-language and Chinese-language service. The installation fee during its launch was
HK$25, with an equipment rental fee of $45, and a monthly subscription charge of $36. Hong Kong tea shops again provided an outlet for the broadcasts to the working class who could not afford the subscription fees. By 1962, 150,000 viewers were Rediffusion Television subscribers. The figure for households was 110,000 as of 1971. The cable system was selected in order not to be received in mainland China. When competitor
TVB made its first free-to-air broadcast on 19 November 1967, RTV had 67,000 subscribers. It was renamed Rediffusion Television Limited (RTV; ) on 1 June 1973 when it was granted its free-to-air terrestrial broadcasting license. Cable television broadcasts were ceased thereafter. On 24 September 1982 it was renamed as
Asia Television (ATV; ). ==See also==