SOUND BROADCASTING IN THE SUB-CONTINENT

• Pakistan offers special opportunities for the development of broadcasting. Its distances and the wide spaces alone make it a promising field. In remote villages there are many who after a hard day’s work like to have some entertainment in their own dialect and idiom. Then there are many households in which the women folk and the elderly do not like taking part in recreation outside their own homes, as social customs do not allow it. To all these and many more, radio will continue to be companion for many many years to come.

• For information, entertainment and education its possibilities are great perhaps scarcely realize how great they are. To put it into the IEC component of any social mobilization scheme can be carried out by radio in a cost-effective manner circumventing the illiteracy barrier. As a tool for advocacy and social motivation, radio as a companion in every household, has a unique position and broadcasting in our country even today is in its infancy and much more is needed to be done.

• Let us recall some significant events in the history of sound broadcasting in our region. The history of regular broadcasting is pre-dated by a number of amateur radio associations who had been permitted to broadcast on very low power at various places, and Lahore and Peshawar stations are two such examples, although broadcasting was undertaken at other location much earlier.

• In the year 1928 a small transmitting station was established at Lahore YMCA. Its running costs were met by an annual grant of Rs. 1500/- from the Punjab Text Book Committee. This experimental station was closed down on 1st September 1937 and afterwards the 5 KW medium wave Lahore Station went on air on 16^th December 1937.

• At Peshawar, the Marconi Company in the year 1935 offered to the Government of NWFP the free loan of a transmitter for rural broadcasting and some village sets on the understanding that they would be purchased after a year’s trial. At the request of the Government of NWFP the Federal Government took over the station from 1^st April 1937.

The points I want to make is that broadcasting in our region has a companionship with the listeners, spreading well over 3 quarter  of a century now and that it was always troubled by financial stringency and had difficulties in technical expansion of its services.

• The failure of the private broadcasting company in our region was assessed to four main reasons, which are relevant even today. The first was the inadequate license fee, which could not keep pace with programme expenses. The second was the lack of adequate capital to build up and improve the broadcasting services. The third was the apathy of the colonial government to the development of broadcasting as it was a major cost to the exchequer. The fourth was the high cost of radio set and its unavailability to the persons who were most in need of information, education and entertainment that is the less privileged persons.
• Soon after the liquidation a universal demand arose for Government action in the matter. A demand was voiced by leaders of opinion and intelligentsia that the colonial government acquires the two stations.

The argument put forward in favor of the state management was its “(A) Education, cultural and nation building possibilities (B) its utility in time of national disturbance. (C) Also, the objection to the alternative of allowing small independent broadcasting organizations to spring up without adequate control.”

• It was in 1932 when it was finally decided to continue broadcasting under Government management but it was three year later that a separate office of the Controller of Broadcasting was created and Mr. Lionel Fielden arrived in Delhi on August 30, 1935 to assume charge as the first Controller of Broadcasting.

• Broadcasting is a global enterprise with interchangeable technology, equipment, programming concepts and even the programmes themselves. However, each country has created broadcasting in its own image to reflect its own artistic activities such as literature, music, art as well as its own beliefs, values, attitudes, customs and social relation.

• The expatriate from Great Britain brought the BBC philosophy of Lord Reith, I quote: –

“The responsibility as at the outset conceived, and despite all discouragements pursued, was to carry into the greatest number of homes everything that was best in every department of human knowledge, endeavor and achievements; and to avoid whatever was or might be hurtful.”

• Such was the philosophy that confronted Mr. A.S. Bokhari, Mr. Z.A. Bokhari, Mr. Rasheed Ahmad who were deputies of Mr. Lionel Fielden. The British model of broadcasting had a paternalistic orientation while broadcasting in USA where commercial broadcasting and aggressive competitiveness of American Marketing shaped the broadcasting, was permissive and open. A third was the authoritarian orientation of broadcasting practiced by the communist Soviet Union, which disintegrated and disappeared in recent past.

Of these three versions, the sub-continent developed its own version incorporating, BBC characteristics & its own oral communication traditions and a synthesis evolved, which we carry to this day.

• The colonial rulers for their convenience had left the rural society with its norms and value system undisturbed to facilitate their governance. In this society the communication was through inter-personal contact or by the word-of-mouth. The village elder, the religious scholar and the practitioner of traditional medicines were the leaders of opinion and their word was solemn and carried authority. Print was an elitist medium as the circulation of newspapers and periodicals was confined to the educated urban elite. It reached only 5% in a population whose literacy rate was so low.

• After independence every Asian State tried to set up industrial infrastructures in urban centers. The migration of rural youth to urban communities brought an imperceptible change in the communication channelization. A returning rural youth had more news and information to convey. This was clearly at odds with the norm of the established communication line-up where the elders were the source of all knowledge.

• The traditional information channelization of the rural society vanished and who was there to fill this void except Radio. Elsewhere in America and Europe the age of TV had arrived but in Asia the cost of the TV Set and the absence of rural electrification kept TV as a marginal communication medium for the rural society.

In such a situation Radio had to act as a companion, a friend and a source of information, education and entertainment on a person-to-person basis.

• When we consider the fact that 70 % of the population lives in rural surroundings were access to electricity, the only source for dissemination of information is the cheap transistor, the only contact with the community. Therefore, in any communication strategy Radio is in a position to put the message across.

• In our country we have to circumvent the illiteracy barrier and there radio remain an ideal and perhaps the only choice. We get the unique opportunity to speak to the target audience in their own tongue. No other medium, print or electronic, uses as many languages and dialects as are spoken on Radio.

• In British India, radio service was introduced in 1935 as a part of government system. Radio stations established in big cities were in direct control of the central Government with its Headquarters located in New Delhi, the capital of British Government in India. In 1947 at the time of independence there were only three radio stations in Pakistan. The stations located at Lahore, Peshawar and Dacca were equipped with low power medium wave transmitters with the total power out-put of 20 kw, covering 7% of the total area in both parts of the country and serving approximately 15% of the population.

• As in all other fields of life, the newly created country faced innumerable problems due to limited resources developing sound broadcasting. It was only because of dedication and hard work of the personnel in early post independence period that radio service developed successfully and soon emerged as a national network. For many years, Radio Pakistan remained the only source of information, education and entertainment for million of listeners living throughout the country in small villages, developing towns and big cities. As the time passed, the number of radio stations increased and so did the power of its transmitters and area of coverage. In late 1950s, that is only after a decade, the number of radio stations in the area, which is now Pakistan rose to six. However, there was a feeling that radio was handicapped being a government department and was not serving its purpose as effectively as in other countries where broadcasting organizations exist as autonomous corporations.

• In view of above, the Government appointed a Broadcasting Committee in 1965 to look into the affairs of Radio Pakistan and to suggest ways and means of making it a more effective public service organization and to recommend the lines of its future growth and development. The Committee submitted its report in 1967 recommending a number of steps to be taken to improve the performance of radio.

1. The present organizational set up of Radio Pakistan is out dated and unsuitable. It cannot provide the kind of service expected in a free and developing country.
2. A broadcasting organization – if it has to function smoothly and carry out its assignments in an efficient manner – cannot afford to be run as just another department of government.
3. The activities of Radio Pakistan are pre-dominantly of a creative nature. The present administrative and financial controls are impeding its working and severely restricting its ability to achieve the prescribed national objectives.

• Having considered all aspects of the proposal the Government decided in 1969 to convert Radio Pakistan into a statutory corporation. However, it was after three years that the proposed Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation was constituted under the PBC Act, 1973.

To manage the affairs of the Corporation, there was to be constituted a Board of Directors consisting of the Chairman, and up to a maximum of seven Directors including the Director General. As it exists now the Corporation has five divisions, namely Programmes, News & Current Affairs, Engineering, Administration and Personnel and Finance & Accounts, each headed by a full-time Director.