M’sia celebrates 53 years of TV broadcast

KUALA LUMPUR: On this day, 53 years ago, the nation’s broadcasting industry took a giant leap with the introduction of television broadcast.

Before that, people solely depended on radio broadcast that began on Aug 24, 1934 to keep in touch with the developments in the country and to be entertained.

It was a humble beginning for the country’s first terrestrial TV channel, that slowly evolved into TV1 and TV2 networks that we know of today. The proposal of establishing a TV broadcast was first made during the cabinet committee meeting on March 16, 1960.

A permanent committee chaired by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry’s assistant minister then, Syed Jaafar Albar, was established.

The other members of the committee were Yaakob Latif (Director of Information), Dol Ramli (Director of Broadcasting), J.H. Wagstaff (Director General of Telecoms) and Ow Kheng Law (Head of the Filem Negara unit).

G.H. Jones, the Canadian Broadcasting Commission’s (CBC) head of engineering, and CBC’s planning expert G.F Brickenden were tasked with preparing the report on the various aspects of television broadcast to the government.

Jones made several proposals on the engineering aspects on Aug 14, 1962 while Brickenden submitted another report in 1963.

Then came the big day, Dec 28, 1963, TV Malaysia broadcast began from a temporary studio at Dewan Tuanku Abdul Rahman in Jalan Ampang, Kuala Lumpur with the broadcast launched by the Chief Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman.

Apart from the Canadian experts, TV Malaysia started with several local pioneers in the broadcasting industry was well. Among them were Ow Kheng Law (Director of TV), Kirpal Singh (Head of Engineering), Raja Iskandar (Head of Planning) and Luke Ang (Head of News).

The first group to join the production operations were (Tan Sri) Ahmad Merican, (Datuk) Abdullah Mohamad, (Datuk) Syed Alwi, Hashim Amir Hamzah, Low Hing Boon, Tan Gek Siam and Richard Job.

Initially, there was only one TV Malaysia channel with a 44-hour broadcast duration per week, from 6.30 p.m. to 9.45 p.m. from Monday to Fridays and from 3.00 p.m. to 11.10 p.m on Saturdays and Sundays.

Almost half of the programmes were aired live with news in Malay, English, Mandarin and Tamil taking up 40 minutes of the transmission time daily. The remaining transmission time was filled up with programmes produced by Filem Negara Malaysia along with several imported programmes.

Production operations were widened after shifting to Wisma TV in Angkasapuri in 1968 and the following year, on 17 Nov, 1969 the second TV channel went on air.

As the broadcasting technology evolved, colour transmission was launched in 1978 putting the nation’s broadcasting sector at par with developed nations.

With the advent of the digital era and the rise of the new media, Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM) that hosts the radio and TV broadcasting also adopted the new medium and began TV streaming.

In 2012, the Minister of Information, Communication and Culture then Tan Sri Dr Rais Yatim launched the TV streaming for smartphones.

Competition is nothing new for RTM and it remained ahead even after TV3, the nation’s first private TV station, began broadcasting in 1984. However, now, RTM is in a crowded field occupied by terrestrial broadcasters, satellite pay TV and the new media. -Bernama