Is Hong Kong's English-language radio speaking to its audience?

As Commercial Radio and Metro Broadcast Corporation prepare for licence renewals, the government should consider clarifying why both organisations must provide English-language services and why they are so heavily scrutinised.

The Communications Authority should ask RTHK to explain how its main English-language station, Radio 3, is meeting the needs of the English-speaking community of Hong Kong, defined as a sector of society that uses English as a lingua franca.

Metro's English-language service has struggled since its launch, while Commercial Radio's AM864 has mostly been reduced to a jukebox.

Both stations meet their licence requirements by providing English-language news and weather, and government announcements.

Foreign-language programmes for ethnic minorities that are limited to 20 per cent of the air time raise the most revenue, if not all, but would not pay for the cost of running a compulsory news service. It would be unfair and unrealistic to ask both organisations to do more than the licence requirements as audiences are miniscule in comparison to the main Chinese-language FM channels.

While the private broadcasters keep their costs down with automation and a skeleton news service, RTHK has a well-staffed, government-funded newsroom providing live updates round the clock. Programmes on Radio 3 feature multiple presenters and are supported by producers as well as web pages and advertising.

RTHK recruitment advertisements show that full-time English-language staff can be paid considerably more than those working in the private sector. Although publicly funded and billed as Hong Kong's No 1 music and talk station, the method and results of Radio 3's annual review are not disclosed.