TRT website broadcast in 30 languages

Text of report in English by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency)
[Xinhua: “Turkey’s State-Run Website Broadcasts in 30 Languages”]
Ankara, 20 Nov - Turkey’s state-run television and radio network TRT on Thursday began broadcasting news in 30 different languages on its website. The languages that the website www.trt-world.com uses include languages such as English, Turkish, French, German, Chinese, Arabic, Albanian, Azeri, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Persian, Georgian, Spanish, Greek, the Urdu and Tatar.
TRT set up its official website on May 1, 1999, broadcasting international, regional and national news in 11 languages to meet the expectations of its viewers in the digital age and provide the opportunities of technology to the public.
Live radio and television programmes are available on the internet to enable global users to have the access to the TRT’s services. Furthermore, the website includes important services such as breaking news from Turkey and the world, latest developments in economy and finance sectors, all branches of sports, weather forecast, radio and television programmes and promotions.
As Turkey’s first and only public broadcasting corporation, TRT was founded on May 1, 1964. It has nine radio channels and seven television channels.
(Source: Xinhua news agency, Beijing, in English 20 Nov 08 via BBC Monitoring)
(R Netherlands Media Network Weblog)

Turkey to begin Kurdish service in January

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that the national broadcaster, TRT, will launch a channel in Kurdish in January, Today’s Zaman reports. He said the broadcasts would initially be for 12 hours a day and that broadcasting hours would be increased later. Mr Erdogan was speaking during a visit to the southeastern province of Diyarbakir, which has a large Kurdish population.
Although the government previously pledged to launch broadcasts in minority languages this month, no concrete steps have been taken to start these broadcasts. The plans include the allocation of one of TRT’s stations for broadcasts in Kurdish, Arabic and Farsi.
(Source: Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union/R Netherlands Media Network Weblog)

Related story:
http://blogs.rnw.nl/medianetwork/turkeys-kurds-perturbed-by-delay-of-promised-kurdish-broadcasting

TRT allowed to broadcast in minority languages

The Turkish Parliament passed a bill on Thursday allowing the state-owned television Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) to broadcast programs in languages other than Turkish, paving the way for broadcasts in Kurdish, Arabic and Farsi.
TRT will now be able to allocate one of its channels to 24-hour broadcasts in Kurdish. TRT General Director Ibrahim Zahin has said they plan to broadcast in Kurdish, Arabic and Farsi in the initial stages of their non-Turkish programming. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan hinted at this in a speech in Diyarbakir on Tuesday, when he announced the government’s plan to resuscitate the Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP/R Netherlands Media Network Weblog).

Turkish General Staff applies for national radio station

The Turkish General Staff [armed forces] has sent an official request to the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTUK) to launch a radio station similar to the police and meteorology stations that will inform the public on the fight against terrorism, certain activities of the military and steps to take during natural disasters.

RTUK is expected to allocate a frequency to the General Staff; however, the council had previously presented a bill to the Cabinet that proposed having the police and meteorology stations broadcast via Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) frequencies instead of regular broadcasting bands. In the event the bill is approved by Parliament, the General Staff station will also broadcast over TRT frequencies.
The General Staff radio station will be a national station that will broadcast across the entire country. Currently the General Staff informs people on important matters through its official Web site; however, since Internet usage is fairly low in rural locations, the General Staff aims to establish a station that will reach even the most remote locations in Turkey.
If the General Staff’s request is approved, there will be no charge for the use of the frequencies it is assigned, just as with the police and meteorology stations. There is no information as to whether there will be continual programmed content on the station.
(Source: Today’s Zaman/R Netherlands Media Network Weblog)

Voice of Turkey radio begins broadcast to Afghanistan

Text of report in English by Turkish news agency Anatolia
The Voice of Turkey Radio will start broadcasting programmes for Afghanistan on 21 March. The radio will broadcast in Dari, Farsi and Pashto dialects and for Uzbeks living in Afghanistan. The programme will be broadcast between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. Turkish local time [1600-1700 gmt]. The Voice of Turkey Radio is now broadcasting in 29 different languages.
Meanwhile, Afghan President Hamid Karzai sent a message to Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, expressing his pleasure with the radio’s broadcasting for his country.
(Source: Anatolia news agency, Ankara, in English 1047 gmt 20 Mar 08 via BBC Monitoring)
Update 21 March: Thanks to Mustafa Cankurt for providing the transmission details: 1600-1700 UTC on 9705 KHz. This broadcast will also be repeated via Internet and Turksat 2 A and Eutelsat Hotbird 6 at 0530-0630 UTC.
(Source: R Netherlands Media Network Weblog)

TRT Turkey to Launch Kurdish Broadcast

TRT-Turkey is planning to set aside one of its five channels for broadcasts in non-Turkish languages used by Turkish citizens, most notably Kurdish, reports Today's Zaman.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has decided to go forward with new efforts to expand broadcasts in Kurdish amid criticism that the government's reform process has encountered a serious slowdown.

TRT General Manager Ibrahim Sahin said it had not yet been decided exactly how the foreign language broadcasts would be carried out but that most likely an entire channel would be devoted to Kurdish broadcasts.

Mr Sahin said: "This channel will start broadcasting as soon as possible. We don't have an exact date yet, though." He added that the TRT board was already at work on coming up with the content of the Kurdish programming.

TRT, the national public broadcaster, is currently planning to either dedicate one of its current channels to full day Kurdish language broadcasts, or to have these broadcasts aired on a new TRT channel. (ABU 21 Feb via Yimber Gaviria-CLM)

Some changes for Voice of Turkey:
all times UTC
1200-1257 new freq 11750 EMR 500 kW 072 deg x12050 in Chinese from Feb.25
1600-1657 9705*CAK 500 kW 104 deg new language-Pashto from Mar.21
*co-ch La Voix du Sahel in French + RRI in Russian
(R BULGARIA DX MIX News, Ivo Ivanov, via wwdxc BC-DX Feb 29)
(Source: WWDXC Top News/BC-DX #849; via wb, Germany)