A radio show promoting LGBTQ equality will end its 17-year run at Hong Kong's public broadcaster on Sunday, with station management citing "changes in programme" as the reason for cancellation.

The axing of "We Are Family" comes after Beijing crushed Hong Kong's democracy movement and imposed a sweeping national security law in 2020, which critics say has fractured civil society and silenced dissent.

Programme co-host Brian Leung said he was "mentally prepared" for the show to be dropped at the government-funded Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK), but was not given a satisfactory explanation when meeting with station management earlier this month.

"For a traditional platform like RTHK, this programme was more or less walking a tightrope," Leung told AFP in an interview hours before the final show.

Featuring a mix of chitchat, news and guest interviews, the show was a rare platform that advocated gay rights in the Chinese city and its 2006 debut broke the mould at the public broadcaster.

Partly inspired by the success of Oscar-winning film "Brokeback Mountain", the show in its early days enjoyed editorial freedom "to an extent I found almost hard to believe", Leung recalled.

The show, which aired for two hours every Sunday at midnight, made use of the broadcaster's wide reach to present LGBTQ content as "something fun, light-hearted and interesting", Leung said.

An episode about the high school bullying of LGBTQ teens won a Human Rights Press Award in 2010, while other episodes sparked discussion on topics such as drag culture and discrimination faced by transgender people.

"Being able to host this sort of programme at a public broadcaster is itself a statement," Leung said. 

"If we can talk about homosexuality, sexual orientation on RTHK every week, that means... it's not taboo."

- 'We can change minds' -

Louis Lee, 28, told AFP that he started listening to the show around a decade ago, just as he was coming out and dabbling in activism.

"What impressed me most was that I heard my mother tuning in to 'We Are Family'. There were also taxi and minibus drivers who listened to the programme and I could have chats with them," Lee said.

A 67-year-old retiree who gave her name as May told AFP that she found the show informative and called it a "rarity" in Hong Kong.

"It feels like the city is being remoulded into a place where we can only have what the authorities allow and diversity is no longer tolerated," she said.

RTHK told AFP that it reviews its programming strategies from time to time and does not comment on internal editorial matters.

Hong Kong has seen a steady rise in support for same-sex marriage, especially among younger residents.

A survey this year found that 60 percent of Hong Kongers supported same-sex marriage, compared to just 38 percent a decade ago. 

But the city's Beijing-approved leadership has shown little appetite in passing laws that advance LGBTQ equality.

Most recently, Hong Kong's top court is processing a challenge against the city's restrictive marriage laws brought by activist Jimmy Sham, who is among a group of opposition figures on trial for subversion.

RTHK in 2020 axed a popular satirical TV show after complaints about a skit lampooning the police and the station later saw a management shakeup.

Despite the lack of change in the city's governing institutions, Leung said he hoped the show "expanded the space for discussion" even as LGBTQ rights advocates faced a "harsh winter" ahead.

"We cannot change the status quo but we can change minds," he said.

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