Overview
According to one of the pioneers of Radio Pakistan, Agha Nasir (9 February 1937 – 12 July 2016), three radio stations at Dhaka (established in 1939), Lahore (1937) and Peshawar Radio Station (1935) existed at the time of independence of Pakistan on 14 August 1947. There was no radio station in the capital of Pakistan, Karachi in 1947.[7][10] On a high priority basis, 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.[10]
A 1973 law, signed by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (President and later Prime minister) regulated Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (PBC) 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".[11]
Its one core mission states: "education, news and information to be brought to public awareness the whole range of significant activity.".[12] It was converted into Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation on 20 December 1972 as a statutory body governed by the board of directors and Director General. The Radio Pakistan World Service was established on 21 April 1973. 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 on 21 March 1991 in Abbottabad.[10]
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.[13]
In the 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 Directors 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, Faisalabad, 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.
