Radio Development
(maryam shaheen, rawalpindi)
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 Aug 13, 1947 at 11:59 pm in Urdu, followed by a similar announcement in
English.
At independence Pakistan possessed three radio stations at Dhaka (established in
1939), Lahore (1937) and Peshawar (1936). A major program of expssansion 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). 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). 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 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.
Thus radio in Pakistan has developed with time.