‘Radio’ a prime source of information | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

‘Radio’ a prime source of information

KARACHI- Radio Pakistan is the prime source of information and entertainment for nearly ten million Pakistanis constituting 34 percent of the country’s adult population.

This was the view of a spokesman of Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation while commenting on the PBC’s achievements during the year 1999. He said this assessment is based on a Gallup survey carried out to assess the number of Pakistani radio listeners and the type and pattern of radio listening in the country.

The increase in radio listening, he said, was mainly attributed to wide ranging reforms and improvement brought about in the programme and news presentation as well as the working environment both of employees and artists of PBC which has set for itself a new vision to squarely meet the challenges posed by the cultural and political invasion through foreign broadcasting station.

Narrating some of the milestones PBC covered during the last one year, the spokesman said FM 101 has been a success story since its launching in October 1998. This channel setup in three major cities of Lahore Karachi and Islamabad is aptly described as an entertainment cockpit with youthful presenters, mostly students, in an informal style providing information and entertainment to listeners 18 hours a day.

FM 101 transmission has been extended to Hyderabad and Peshawar from Karachi and Islamabad respectively, the spokesman said adding that the channel has attracted 45 million rupees bid for its marketing rights. The highest bid that was received for its marketing rights is very encouraging for a cash strapped Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (PBC), he observed and said efforts are underway for linking Pakistan Motorway with three transmitters to provide non-stop information and entertainment to the motorists.

On the development side spokesman said, two more 100 KW transmitters each were fabricated for Rawalpindi and Karachi during this period.

He said Radio transmission including the World Services and FM 101 were placed on the Internet in the audio as were the major news bulletins. Radio Pakistan is this audible to Pakistanis in North America and the regions, which do not carry PBC signals through the short wave transmission.

The spokesman to counter effectively the adversary’s propaganda through radio. To meet this challenge, he said, the external services have been strengthened with Hindi and Southeastern Services being doubled, while a new service was introduced for Assam and North east of India. Quite recently a new Current Affairs wing has been setup to blunt the malicious tirade dished out from the Indian electronic media.

“You can appreciate that the Chief Executive recently lauded the matching response given by the Pakistan media during Indian plane hijacking episode”, he added.

“60-minute “woman hour” broadcast daily and Khutba-e-Juma with translation in Urdu was introduced for the first time on our network”, he added.

He said long overdue promotions were implemented to benefit about 1,000 PBC employees whereas the artist’s fee was increased by 50 percent after a gap of 5 years.
Source: The Nation
Date:2/24/2000