Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation

Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation
ریڈیو پاکستان
Type Radio network
International public broadcaster
Branding PBC
Availability Pakistan
Worldwide
Motto قُولُوا لِلنَّاسِ حُسْناً from Qur'an 2:83; "Speak to men good (words)"
Headquarters Islamabad, Pakistan
Area Nationwide
Worldwide
Owner Government of Pakistan
Key people
 MNA Marriyum Orangzaib
(Minister-in-Charge)
Ministry of Information and Mass-media Broadcasting
(Board of Governors)
Established 14 August 1947 (1947-08-14)
Former names
 All India Radio
Callsigns PBC
Official website
 urdu.radio.gov.pk

Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (Urdu: ریڈیو پاکستان‎; Reporting name: PBC), also known as Radio Pakistan, is a public radio broadcasting network, as well as a mass-media state-owned megacorporation in Pakistan.[1]

PBC provides a wide range of radio and news services which are broadcast in TV, internet, and radio, outside Pakistan in 10 different languages.[2] PBC's programmes served as mission purpose to entertain people through cultural music, features, and plays, while educating the overseas audience about the Pakistan, its culture and government, and the world. PBC programmes educate peoples on socioeconomic issues covering "health‚ education‚ environment‚ population welfare‚ agriculture‚ special persons‚ rights of women‚ human rights‚ minorities and media freedom".[2]

A 1973 law, signed by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (President and later Prime minister) regulated PBC to as "to publish, circulate, distribute and regulate (reliable and trusted) news and information in any part of the world in any manner that may be deemed fit".[3] Its one core mission states: "education, news and information to be bring to public awareness the whole range of significant activity.".[4] PBC's radio services and television programmes are broadcast through satellite, cable, FM, AM, and shortwave radio frequencies.[5] Select PBC programming is also available through WRN.[6] At national level, PBC broadcast its programmes in 23 different state-recognized languages at 24-hour news cycle period.[2] While its external services programmes are broadcast eight hrs daily in 10 different foreign languages, covering Western, Southern, Eastern, Northern Asia and some parts of Eastern Europe.[2][7]

History

The Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation, popularly called Radio Pakistan came into being as Pakistan Broadcasting Service on 14 August 1947 when Pakistan emerged on the world map as a new country. The independence of Pakistan was announced through Radio Pakistan on 13 August 1947 at 11:59 pm in Urdu, followed by a similar announcement in English.[8] Mustafa Ali Hamdani (1909–1980) made the Urdu announcement in the following words:

!السلام علیکم
پاکستان براڈ کاسٹنگ سروس۔ ہم لاہور سے بول رہے ہیں۔ تیرہ ا اگست، سنہ سینتالیس عیسوی کی درمیانی رات۔ بارہ بجے ہیں۔ طلوع صبح آزادی۔

The English translation of this announcement is as follows:

Greetings!

Pakistan Broadcasting Service. We are speaking from Lahore. The night between the thirteen and fourteen of August, year forty seven. It is twelve o'clock. Dawn of Freedom. This announcement is aired by Pakistan Television Network (A state run TV network – PTV) every year during the special independence day transmissions. One of the sample announcements by PTV can be found at this link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x3GHfJqs0k

Mustafa Ali Hamdani

Abdullah Jan Maghmoom (1928–2013) made the announcement for Radio Pakistan, Peshawar on 13 August 1947 in Pashto.

At independence Pakistan possessed three radio stations at Dhaka (established in 1939), Lahore (1937) and Peshawar (1936). A major program of expansion saw new stations opened at Karachi and Rawalpindi in 1948, and a new broadcasting house at Karachi in 1950. This was followed by new stations at Hyderabad (1951), Quetta (1956), a second station at Rawalpindi (1960) and a Receiving Centre at Peshawar (1960).

In 1970, training facilities were opened in Islamabad and a station opened at Multan. A major step was the establishment of the Radio Pakistan World Service on 21 April 1973 for overseas Pakistanis followed by new stations at Khairpur (1974) and Bahawalpur (1975).

The main broadcasting unit of PBC at Islamabad moved to the new National Broadcasting House in 1977 and the service reached the remotest parts of Pakistan with stations at Gilgit (1977) and Skardu (1977) in the far north and Turbat (1981) in the far southwest. From 1981 to 1982 stations and transmitters were also established at Dera Ismail Khan, Khuzdar and Faisalabad.

Radio Pakistan opened a new broadcasting house in Khairpur on 7 May 1986, followed by relay stations in 1989 at Sibi and Abbottabad. The remoter parts of the country began to receive coverage with new stations opened in the 1990s at Chitral, Loralai and Zhob. In 1997, the Federal Minister of Information inaugurated the computerisation of the PBC news processing system and availability of the news bulletins on the Internet in text and audio form.FM 101 Channel of PBC was launched on 1 October 1998 having stations at Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi and now this channel have nine stations throughout Pakistan and is the biggest FM Radio network of Pakistan.

In October 1998, Radio Pakistan started FM transmission and over the period 2002–2005, new FM stations were opened at Islamabad, Gwadar, Mianwali, Sargodha, Kohat, Bannu and Mithi. In last two and a half years three new networks have been launched by PBC. On 28 August 2008 PBC launched National Broadcasting Service (NBS) the first dedicated Current Affairs Channel. It is a combination of 5 (100 KW) AM transmitters permanently linked together to broadcast a single national program beamed across Pakistan. Islamabad, Peshawar, Lahore, Quetta and Karachi are the main stations generating the national programming. It is a 17 hours programming on major national and international issues, target audience and literary and cultural programs. PBC launched a new Community FM channel after February 2009 Station Director Conference. The network is called FM-93 Network with 22 stations across Pakistan. Gilgit, Muzaffarabad, Mirpur, Abbottabad, Chitral, Bannu, Kohat, Dera Ismail Khan, Sargodha, Mianwali, Faislabad, Lahore, Multan, Larkana, Khairpur, Bhit Shah, Hyderabad, Mithi, Karachi and Gwadar transmit the FM 93 network. On 14 November PBC launched its first English Music Channel in Islamabad called Planet 94. The network operates on FM 94. The second and third stations of the English channel are soon to start their transmissions from Lahore and Karachi.

The PBC Act of 1973[9] contains inter alia provisions concerning management (chapter III, ss. 4–9) and finance (chapter VI, ss. 13–20). According to the act it is among the corporation's functions (chapter IV) "to broadcast such programmes as may promote Islamic ideology, national unity and principles of democracy, freedom equality, tolerance and social justice as enunciated by Islam, discourage parochial, racial, tribal, sectarian, linguistic and provincial prejudices and reflect the urges and aspirations of the people of Pakistan" (s. 10(1)(b)).

PBC Services

The PBC provides several services including:

PBC News

The PBC News service broadcasts 149 news bulletins in 31 languages daily, covering world, national and regional news as well as sports, business and weather reports.

External Service

Radio Pakistan is the official international broadcasting station of Pakistan.

Radio Pakistan was able to start its external services on regular basis in 1949. As Pakistan is strategically located and is a close neighbour of China, India, Middle Eastern countries and Central Asia, it is necessary to use Radio Pakistan and its external services as an instrument to project the country's policies in true perspective so that a message of peace and friendship is disseminated to the world specially to its neighbours.

The programmes of External Services are so designed as to project Pakistan's view point on domestic and foreign policy issues. Another special aim of these services is to disseminate knowledge about the art, culture, history, values and way of life of its people among foreign listeners to generate feelings of friendship, goodwill and mutual understanding which help create an environment of peace and tranquility and make co-existence possible in the region. They broadcast in 34 languages: Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, Balochi, Seraiki, Potowari, Pashto, Hindko, Kohistani, Khowar, Kashmiri, Dhatki, Gojri, Pahari, Burushaski, Balti, Shina, Wakhi, Hazargi, Brahvi, English, Chinese, Dari, Persian, Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, Sinhala, Nepali, Russian, Turkish, Arabic, and Bengali.[10]

Regional and International Stations

World Service

Islamabad Capital Territory

Sl No. STATIONS TRANSMITTER FREQUENCY
1 Islamabad 500 kW MW 585 kHz
2.5 kW FM 93.0 MHz
2.5 kW FM 93.4 MHz
2.5 kW FM 94.0 MHz
FM 101.0 MHz
2KW FM CRI 98.0 MHz
250 kW SW
250 kW SW
100 kW SW
100 kW SW
100 kW SW
100 kW SW
2 Efflux Plus online

Sindh

Sl No. STATIONS TRANSMITTER FREQUENCY
1 Bhit Shah 2 kW FM 101.4

 MHz

2 Hyderabad 120 kW MW 1008 kHz
10 kW MW 1098 kHz
3 kW FM 93.0 MHz
2.5 kW FM 101.0 MHz
3 Karachi 10 kW MW 612 kHz
100 kW MW 639 kHz
100 kW MW 828 kHz
2.5 kW FM 93.0 MHz
2.5 kW FM 93.4 MHz
2.5 kW FM 94.0 MHz
5 kW FM 101.0 MHz
4 Khairpur 5 kW FM 93.3 MHz
5 Larkana 1 kW FM 101.0 MHz
6 Mithi 3 kW FM 93.0 MHz
7 Efflux Plus online

Punjab

Punjabi language is spoken by majority of Punjab as well as in Pakistan, still PBC has not a separate devoted TV or radio channel in Punjabi.Pakistan radio makes its announcements in Urdu, Punjabi language is being marginalised by PBC.

Sl No. STATIONS TRANSMITTER FREQUENCY
1 Bahawalpur 10 kW MW 1341 kHz
2.5 kW FM 93.4 MHz
2 Faisalabad 10 kW MW 1476 kHz
2.5 kW FM 93.0 MHz
2.5 kW FM 93.4 MHz
2.5 kW 101.0 MHz
3 Kallar Kahar 2 kW FM 101.0 MHz
4 Lahore 100 kW MW 630 kHz
100 kW MW 1332 kHz
5 kW FM 93.0 MHz
2.5 kW FM 93.4 MHz
2.5 kW FM 100 (Pakistan) 100.0 MHz
2 kW FM 101.0 MHz
5 Mianwali 3 kW FM 93.0 MHz
6 Multan 120 kW MW 1035 kHz
2.5 kW FM 93.0 MHz
2.5 kW FM 101.0 MHz
7 Murree 2.5 kW FM 101.0 MHz
8 Narowal 2.5 kW FM 93.4 MHz
9 Rawalpindi 100 kW MW 1152 kHz
2.5 kW FM 93.5 MHz
10 Sargodha 3 kW FM 93.0 MHz
11 Sialkot 2.5 kW FM 101.0 MHz

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Sl No. STATIONS TRANSMITTER FREQUENCY
1 Abbottabad 250 kW MW 1602 kHz
2.5 kW FM 93.0 MHz
2 Bannu 3 kW FM 93.0 MHz
3 Chitral 250 kW MW 1484 kHz
2 kW FM 93.0 MHz
4 Dera Ismail Khan 100 kW MW 711 kHz
2.5 kW FM 93.0 MHz
5 Kohat 3 kW FM 93.0 MHz
6 Peshawar 400 kW MW 540 kHz
100 kW MW 1170 kHz
2.5 kW FM 93.4 MHz
2 kW FM 101.0 MHz

Balochistan

Sl No. STATIONS TRANSMITTER FREQUENCY
1 Gawadar 3 kW FM 93.0 MHz
2 Khuzdar 300 kW MW 567 kHz
3 Loralai 10 kW MW 1251 kHz
4 Sibi 250 kW MW 1584 kHz
5 Quetta 150 kW MW 756 kHz
100 kW MW 1134 kHz
2.5 kW MW 93.4 MHz
2 kW MW 101.0 MHz
6 Turbat 250 kW MW 1584 kHz
7 Zhob 10 kW MW 1449 kHz

Gilgit-Baltistan

Sl No. STATIONS TRANSMITTER FREQUENCY
1 Gilgit 10 kW MW 1512 kHz
2.5 kW FM 93.0 MHz
2 Skardu 10 kW MW 1557 kHz

Azad Jammu and Kashmir

Sl No. STATIONS TRANSMITTER FREQUENCY
1 Mirpur 100 kW MW 936 kHz
2.5 kW FM 93.4 MHz
2.5 kW FM 101.4 MHz
2 Muzzafarabad 250 kW MW 782 kHz
2.5 kW FM 101.0 MHz

See also

References and notes

  1. ↑ E-Govt, Electronic Government. "Ministry of Information, PBC". Ministry of Information and Mass-media Broadcasting. Government of Pakistan. Retrieved 6 June 2012.
  2. 1 2 3 4 E-Govt. "Programming of PBC". Directorate for Public Relations and International Press Release(Programming). Retrieved 6 June 2012.
  3. ↑ E-Government. "The PBC Act of 1973". Electronic Government of Pakistan. Directorate for Public Relations and International Press Release (PBC Law Ordnance). Retrieved 6 June 2012.
  4. ↑ E-Govt. "PBC Mission and Purpose". Electronic Government of Pakistan. Our Mission. Retrieved 6 June 2012.
  5. ↑ E-Govt. "Frequency Map". Data Collection. Retrieved 6 June 2012.
  6. ↑ "Radio Pakistan on WRN". World Radio Broadcast. Retrieved 13 September 2012.
  7. ↑ E-Govt. "External Services". External Services. Retrieved 6 June 2012.
  8. ↑ . Dawn.com http://dawn.com/news/727097/flashback-voices-from-the-past. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  9. ↑ Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation Act, 1973 (XXXII of 1973)
  10. ↑
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