A hill of five stations : the cultural history of a modern urban cultural landscape, the case of Broadcast Drive

Abstract

What is special about Broadcast Drive or “A Hill of Five Stations”? It is all about residential properties and some broadcasting stations! These are the statements I often heard when I told my friends of my research topic but cultural significance of a place is not subject to its age, form and size.

Broadcast Drive, a ring road of about 1.1-kilometre long, was developed from a massif in the mid 1960s. Sitting on a slope in the northern part of Kowloon Peninsula, Broadcast Drive was selected for housing all four broadcasting stations, namely Radio Hong Kong (later the Radio Television Hong Kong), Redifussion Hong Kong (later the Asia Television), Television Broadcasts Limited and Commercial Radio Hong Kong in the 1960s, since then the road was informally known as “A Hill of Four Stations.” With the introduction of the fifth broadcasting station, Commercial Television, in 1975, Broadcast Drive was given a nickname, “A Hill of Five Station”.

Without any comprehensive study on the street, many people in Hong Kong share a common false truth that the centralization of all broadcasting studios at Broadcast Drive was due to the riot of 1967, but the rich layers, unique characters and cultural significance of Broadcast Drive have been ignored. This paper is aimed at filling the research gap, revealing the history and development of the place, and more importantly, identifying the distinctive cultural characters and cultural significance of Broadcast Drive through gathering documentary evidence mainly from primary sources, such as government records and confidential correspondences among departments, newspapers, photos, plans and site surveys. This study also uncovers unexpectedly that the majority of the studios at Broadcast Drive are the works of representing local architectural firms, which adds values to this short ring road.

At present, among the original six studios of the five stations at Broadcast Drive, only four remain standing. As an urban cultural site, it is vulnerable to development. To manage the potential challenges arising from the future plan of Radio Television Hong Kong and the current zoning of the studios, some recommendations have been made in this dissertation to uphold the cultural values of the place. Broadcast Drive is not just a street relating to show business, entertainment and information, it also has a close association with our cultural heritage.