Hong Kong Cable Television Limited today unveiled a $150 million digitisation plan for its news centre, ushering in a new era of news production in Hong Kong. The Company is also due to become Hong Kong’s first broadcaster to launch digital transmission later this month.

When completed in the first quarter of 2002, Hong Kong Cable’s news centre will be the first fully digitised news facility in Asia, supporting operations from news gathering and shooting, editing to post production. State-of-the-art digital shooting, editing and broadcasting equipment will be deployed to significantly reduce production time and enhance efficiency of the whole production process. It will also pave the way to exploit new opportunities brought about by technology convergence such as online broadcasting, interactive television and third generation (3G) mobile services.

Speaking at a ceremony to mark the completion of infrastructural works of the centre located at its headquarters in Tsuen Wan, the Company’s Chairman & Chief Executive, Mr Stephen T.H. Ng, said Hong Kong Cable takes great pride in being the leading news broadcaster in Hong Kong and in leading the industry’s next development. "The digitised news centre will not only raise the quality of our news programmes, it will also enable us to introduce new applications for the digitised contents with ease," he said.

"Digitisation will eliminate the intermediary process and give us much greater flexibility in adapting our television contents to other applications," he added.

Hong Kong Cable’s News Controller, Mr Ronald Chiu, described the plan as another "revolution" for broadcast news. "The first revolution took place in the late 1970s when video tapes replaced films for the production of television news. Hong Kong Cable now leads a second revolution by replacing tapes with digital data," he added.

Hong Kong Cable Television Limited is Hong Kong’s pre-eminent pay television service operator, offering a 31-channel service to over 550,000 subscribers. Hong Kong Cable is a wholly-owned subsidiary of i-CABLE Communications Limited. The Company is Hong Kong’s only fully integrated communications company which owns and operates the territory’s second largest communications network; creates its own multi-media contents; and provides pay television and Internet access service, including Broadband service.

i-CABLE is listed in both the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (Stock quote: 1097) and NASDAQ in the US (Symbol: ICAB). i-CABLE is 79.4% held by The Wharf (Holdings) Limited, which is also listed in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (Stock quote:0004).