PROMOTION OF POPULAR SPORTS OVER T.V. SINGAPURA

Mr Tay Boon Too asked the Minister for Culture and Social Affairs whether he is aware that, though it is the policy to promote sports consciousness in Singapore, T.V. Singapura seldom shows popular sports like basketball, volleyball and table tennis on the Sports Parade programme, and if he will instruct the Broadcasting Division to include more coverage of such games in the programme.

Mr Lee Khoon Choy (for the Minister for Culture and Social Affairs): Mr Speaker, Sir, T.V. Singapura over the past few years have definitely increased their sports coverage. Apart from the weekly Sports Parade programme, there is coverage of sports in the newsreels and also full-length programmes on sports whenever they have been available, especially those on popular sports such as badminton and football. Between July 1966 and March 1967, there were two programmes on basketball with an interview in Chinese about local basketball, and for a similar number of occasions, table tennis was shown. In volley-ball, the finals of the Singapore Combined Schools' Inter-District Volley Ball Tournament was shown with three matches, the first between Nan Hwa Girls' School and River Valley Girls' School, the second, Nanyang Girls' School versus Whampoa Girls' School, and the third, Yock Eng School versus A.C.S.

There can be more coverage if T.V. Singapura get advance information from the organisers of these sports. T.V. Singapura have no full-time sports reporters, and unless the organisers of the sports concerned give advance information, it is very difficult to cover such events. It must be appreciated that there are over 30 types of sports with different degrees of popularity in Singapore and something has to be shown of all these sports.