Authoritarianism, the struggle for current affairs public service broadcasting and Radio Television Hong Kong

Abstract

This article is one outcome of research into primary documents held in national archives in Malaysia, Singapore, the United Kingdom and, in Hong Kong, the archives of Radio Television Hong Kong and Hong Kong Public Records Office. These documents indicate how the territories of Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong responded to calls to develop television broadcasting systems which embodied public service broadcasting (PSB). That response was conditioned by the reality that all three territories were authoritarian entities, and that PSB was, in contradistinction, a liberal-democratic concept. This article will chart the problems involved in establishing television PSB in these territories, beginning with Malaysia and Singapore during the 1960s, and then Hong Kong, 1970–2020. The article will begin with a brief account of the notion of PSB, and the role played by western broadcasting companies during the Cold War, in colonial British South East Asia, during the 1950s and 1960s.