VOA Adds Amharic Morning Show
PRESS RELEASE - Washington, D.C., March 3, 2008 - The Voice of America's (VOA) Amharic Service has launched a new morning radio show, offering an additional half-hour of up-to-the-minute news and information to millions of VOA listeners throughout Ethiopia. The new morning show features on-the-ground news reports, the latest U.S. and world news, cultural highlights, and in-depth coverage of social, political and economic issues directly affecting Ethiopians.
"We're always striving to meet the growing needs of our audience," said VOA Amharic Service Chief David Arnold. "We want to reach the widest possible audience, particularly in the rural areas where listenership has peaked," he added.
The morning show airs live, Monday-Friday at 0300 UTC (6:00 a.m. local) via shortwave. In addition, VOA Amharic airs a one-hour evening show at 1800 UTC (9:00 p.m. local), seven days a week. Both programs are available live and on demand at www.VOANews.com/horn.
VOA's Horn of Africa Service broadcasts 12 hours a week, in the Amharic, Afan Oromo and Tigrigna languages. More than 11 percent of Ethiopia's 76.5 million people tune in to VOA Amharic weekly.
The Voice of America, which first went on the air in 1942, is a multimedia international broadcasting service funded by the U.S. government through the Broadcasting Board of Governors. VOA broadcasts more than 1,250 hours of news, information, educational, and cultural programming every week to an estimated worldwide audience of more than 115 million people. Programs are produced in 45 languages.
(Voice of America/VOA News)
