Radio Broadcasting In Pakistan

By Saveed Raza
Faraday

In 1831, Michael Faraday began a series of experiments in

which he discovered electromagnetic induction. The relation
was mathematically modeled by Faraday's law, which
subsequently became one of the four Maxwell equations.
Faraday proposed that electromagnetic forces extended into
the empty space around the conductor, but did not complete
his work involving that proposal.

Beginnings of radio:

There are varying disputed claims about who invented radio,

which in the beginning was called "wireless telegraphy". The
key invention for the beginning of "wireless transmission of
data using the entire frequency spectrum", known as the
spark-gap transmitter, has been attributed to various men.
Marconi equipped ships with life saving wireless
communications and established the first transatlantic radio
service. Tesla developed means to reliably produce radio
frequency electrical currents, publicly demonstrated the
principles of radio, and transmitted long distant signals.
n 1896, Guglielmo Marconi was awarded a patent for radio
with British Patent 12039, Improvements in Transmitting
Electrical Impulses and Signals and in Apparatus There-for.

Radio Pakistan:

Is the official international broadcasting station of Pakistan.

Radio Pakistan was able to start its external services on
regular basis on 1949. As Pakistan is strategically located
and is a close neighbor 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 neighbors.
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 in order
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 16 languages: English, Chinese, Dari,
Pushto, Hazaragi, Persian, Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, Sinhala,
Nepali, Turki, Russian, Turkish, Arabic, and Bangla.
Radio Pakistan continues to broadcast programmes which
promote relations between Pakistan and organizations of
which Pakistan is the member.

The Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation:

was formed on 14th August 1947 when Pakistan became

independent. It was a direct descendant of the Indian
Broadcasting Company which later became All India Radio.
At independence Pakistan possessed three radio stations at
Dhaka, Lahore and Peshawar. A major programme 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 further 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 21st
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 7th 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 [1].
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.

PBC Services

The PBC provides several services including:

• Home Service (domestic network)
• World Service (for overseas Pakistanis)
• External Service
• PBC News
o News & Current Affairs Channel
• Sautul Qur'an (religious broadcasting)
• FM – 101 (service in major towns and cities)
• National Sound Archives

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.
IT'S HARD TO SAY EXACTLY WHEN radio started to lose the
love and the Power and the magic celebrated in that Noor
Jahan anthem.

Worse, there's increasing

Concern that radio is entering a long-term decline, the result
of new
Competition and technologies and changing consumer
tastes.
Under adults -- the key targets of radio advertising -- have
clearly been losing their ardor for the medium. By one key
measure, the number of listeners ages 18 to 34 declined by
about 50% in 1990.

New Competition:

Radio Vs TV was the first reason caused decline the radio

broadcasting and listeners in Pakistan

Radio Medium itself is the reason for this decline. We all

know that radio only communicates through Audio. One can
listen to it understand and then react on the other hand TV is
more striking, attractive, easier to understand and react.

In Pakistan according to one estimate rural areas had the

maximum number of listeners 10 years back. The constant
changing competition which radio is facing from last few
decade is largest cause of decline in number of listeners and
Radio Broadcasting itself. Today we prefer watching tv news
channel for news and our mobile phones or personal
computers to listen to our favorite songs. Arrival of internet,
Mobile Phone with Mass Storage Capacity, Cable TV, Local
Cable Tv channels, Video games and now ipods have
massively caused decline in this industry. Because radio is a
limited medium therefore it is not as effective as other
mediums are.

Changing Technology

Its almost same as new competition but slightly restricted to

what new things are coming up with. More or less every
person is getting in the fast lane of life where he or she has
less time to receive information and react. This difference
could be experience while moving from Faisalabad’s life to
Karachi or from Karachi to New York. The difference is clear
and this is just because of technology we are experiencing
while staying in different areas of the world.
Radio on a whole in Pakistan is quickly going down day by
day due to this rapid technology and life lane changings. I
my self used P1 computer 6 years back but now there is not
even single software in the market which could be installed
on that same P1 system which used. We have 100 TV
channel on a single click we have 1000s of songs on single
click and can talk to whoever and whenever we want to.
3310 is now a joke but believe you me few years back I was
a status symbol. I am not telling you that 3310 is the cause
of decline of radio industry but just to realize you how
technology changes. Radio technology started from audio
and still Its all about Audio and of course it will remain as a
audio medium but the technology is changing every moment
and there is nothing Radio could do about it.

Changing Tastes:

Although Indian songs continue to enjoy high popularity in

Pakistan, their exclusive hold on listenership has declined
over the past 25 years. These findings have emerged from a
recent survey by Gallup Pakistan on Media Habits. The
survey revealed that almost one-third (37%) of the Pakistani
population prefers to buy cassettes of Indian songs over any
other, while less than one-fourth (19%) prefer only Pakistani
songs. However, 38% like to listen to both Pakistani and
Indian music.
The same survey was conducted by Gallup Pakistan a
number of times since 1980, revealing that exclusive
preference for Indian music was as high as 54% in 1980,
which declined to 50% in 2000 before dropping significantly
to 37% in 2006, at present.
Exclusive listenership of Pakistani music nearly doubled from
27% to 42% during the years 1980 – 2000. However, it
dropped significantly to 19% in 2006, showing an increasing
trend for listenership of both Pakistani and Indian music.
When asked, analysts at Gallup Pakistan explained this
pattern by saying that greater access to Indian music
through cable/satellite TV has blurred the distinction
between Indian and Pakistani music. Hence creating the
trend of listening to both, rather than exclusively preferring
either Pakistani or Indian songs.
This survey was a single example about how our taste
changes. PBC could never allow Radio Pakistan to broadcast
Indian or some foreign music because of certain obvious
policies and this was also a big cause of downfall.
As Ralf Weldo Emerson Said:

We change, whether we like it or not”

If you don't create change, change will create you”

This is what all happened with Radio Industry!

Current Conditions:

But now there are more than 116 Private Local

Entertainment Radio Stations Regulated by PEMRA (Pakistan
Electronic Media Regulatory Authority) working actively in
Pakistan. Which have helped a lot in the reincarnation of
radio broadcasting. New technology like RDS and Frequency
Modulation has enabled radio industry to meet new
technology changes.
Now it’s a new industry where radio stations are earning
more than 10 Million a month 2 times more than some of the
satellite Tv channels.