Pakistan eyes their future

PBC Pakistan QSL (Gayle Van Horn QSL Collection)

Pakistan
Pakistan Broadcasting proposed to get major share of next budget's pie. Television and radio will be receiving the major share of the budgetary proposals outlined by the information ministry as the
government seeks to update equipment and infrastructure of the state broadcasters. This was disclosed in a report on the budgetary allocations proposed by the Information and Broadcasting Division for the financial year 2019-2020.

Around Rs3.1bn have been allocated for the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (PBC) with three projects worth Rs201.46m also proposed.

PBC's projects include the establishment of a 100-kW medium wave transmitter in Gwadar, rehabilitation of MW services from Muzaffarabad and replacement of MW transmitter at Mirpur, which also doubles as strategic equipment.

The Senate was told that Information Fawad Chaudhry has disclosed the establishment of a mega MW transmitter at Fort Monroe at an estimated cost of Rs2.5bn with the cabinet already granting its approval in principle.

The transmitter will be sufficient for Radio Pakistan's transmission not only in the entire country but also to cover parts of Afghanistan and India.
(xpress Tribune, 9 March)
(via BrDXC_UK "Communication" monthly Magazine May 9)
(Top news 1385/31 May 2019)

Radio Pakistan: home to forgotten music instruments and archives

Veena, also known as a Saraswati Veena

Published in Dawn, October 7th, 2018

The headquarters of Radio Pakistan in G-5 is home to musical instruments used by musical legends of the country and thousands of minutes worth of archives.

The announcement made for the birth of Pakistan at midnight on Aug 14, 1947 also marked the birth of Radio Pakistan. The announcement began with “this is Pakistan Broadcasting Service”.

It was converted into the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (PBC) on Dec 20, 1972 as a statutory body governed by a board of directors and the director general. The foundation of the existing headquarters was also laid at this time.

PBC has an extensive national network of AM, FM and SW stations covering 98pc of the population in around 80pc of the total area of Pakistan.

Broadcasts are made from the 20 studios in the headquarters in English, Urdu, local languages and regional languages including Tamil, Gujrati, Farsi, Dari, Bangla, Nepali and Sinhalese. China Radio also transmits its news and current affairs programmes from one of these studios.

Additiona story at: https://www.dawn.com/news/1437306