Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) is the national broadcaster in Hong Kong. The broadcaster was established in 1928 as the first broadcasting service in Hong Kong. Today, RTHK airs eight radio and five television channels.
Media assets
Television: TV 31, TV 32, TV33, TV34, TV35
Radio: Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 3, Radio 4, Radio 5, Putonghua Channel, CNR/HK, CMG/RGB
State Media Matrix Typology: State-Controlled (SC)
Ownership and governance
RTHK has the status of a government department under the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau of the Hong Kong Government. The Bureau is in charge of implementing the commerce-related policies of the Hong Kong Government.
The main governing structure at RTHK is its Board of Advisors that is appointed, according to the RTHK Charter approved in August 2010, by the RTHK’s Director of Broadcasting. With 14 members at the moment, the board has an advisory role, but no executive power. Its main functions are to advise the Director of Broadcasting on matters related to editorial principles, receive complaints about the RTHK programs and advise the Director of Broadcasting on the community participation in the RTHK programs, among other things. The Director of Broadcasting is an ex officio member of this board. The Director of Broadcasting is appointed by the Chief Executive (the head of the Government of Hong Kong).
Source of funding and budget
RTHK is fully funded by the Hong Kong Government. In the 2019-2020 fiscal year, RTHK received a state subsidy of HKD 1.02bn (US$ 131.7m), according to the broadcaster’s budget. In the 2020-2021 fiscal year, the broadcaster’s budget was cut by nearly 5% to HKD 995m (US$ 126.8m), according to media reports. However, two years later, in the fiscal year 2022/2023, RTHK’s budget increased to some HKD 1.08bn (US$ 137m), according to a company report.
Editorial independence
In the past, RTHK has repeatedly garnered praise for its editorial independence. Protected by various editorial rules in place at RTHK and the guarantees for independence nailed down in the RTHK charter, the station has been often lauded for its editorial independence.
However, since 2020, the broadcaster has come under severe government pressures that were mainly orchestrated by Beijing. Already the previous chair of the RTHK Advisory Board, replaced in August 2020, reportedly asked RTHK to provide more positive coverage of the newly adopted national security law imposed by China on Hong Kong.
In June 2020, an RTHK program was scrapped following complaints from the police force. In August 2020, an interview with a human rights activist that is sought by the police was removed by RTHK.
Such examples of censorship (or self-censorship) have abounded in the past two years as the government has cemented its editorial control at RTHK.
In February 2021, following the appointment of Patrick Li, an experienced civil servant, as director of broadcasting, journalists resigned and the atmosphere at the station “changed overnight,” according to a report released by Hong Kong Watch, an NGO, in April 2022.
A slew of previous programs aired by RTHK have been deleted from all online platforms and the station’s journalists were instructed to closely follow a series of programming guidelines that led to the loss of the station’s editorial independence. The station even holds financially liable staff who produce programs that are later censored, a measure aimed at discouraging journalists from tackling sensitive issues. A study released in June 2022 found that public trust in RTHK was down to 53% from 59% in 2021.
According to the RTHK Charter, RTHK has a public service mission that requires the broadcaster to be an independent platform for exchange of views “without fear or favor.” The same charter states that RTHK should be guaranteed editorial independence. The charter lists a series of editorial principles that the station should abide by. The Director of Broadcasting is responsible for ensuring RTHK’s editorial independence and for making the final editorial decisions. In the past year, however, all these instruments in place to ensure editorial independence have been totally ignored.
RTHK has various ways to measure its performance independently, the most important being the Television Appreciation Index Advisory Panel, led by RTHK and consisting of representatives of local television stations, industry associations and academics that conduct regular audience surveys to gauge how the public perceives the station; and the RTHK Programming Advisory Panel that consists of 140 members from a variety of fields that monitors the RTHK programs, but also lobbies on behalf of the station (for example, it has asked several times the HK government to increase the station’s funding to allow the broadcaster to properly carry out its public service tasks).
October 2023