Radio undoubtedly is the most effective medium of public instruction. With the advent of TV In Europe and America it did not go into the background as was generally anticipated. On the contrary, it continues to hold the forte. Some of the BBC Radio programmes are still the most heard programmes of Britain. Mention can be made of BBC radio programme TODAY. No TV programme in Britain has a higher public rating than it.
In this part of the world, however, successive governments have been meting out a step-motherly treatment to radio after the introduction of TV in 1964. Those who work for radio are paid less as compared to those who appear on TV. Whosoever midwifed FM channels was certainly no friend of radio. He has certainly destroyed radio rather than developing it further.
A couple of days back it was in the air that the government was toying with the idea of shifting the radio headquarter from its present building in the federal capital to the building of Radio academy and instead house a university in the radio headquarter building. If this idea was translated into a reality it would tantamount to stabbing the radio in the back. Has anybody thought where would the 1500 employees of Radio Islamabad be housed?There isn’t enough space in the Radio academy ‘s building to accommodate these 1500 staff members. Why are our policy makers, particularly, in the Information ministry, so indifferent to the poisonous propaganda being broadcast day in and day out from Radio Kabul and All India Radio against Pakistan?Isn’t it necessary that the external service of radio Pakistan is revived to the full by broadbasing it for broadcasting regular pustho and persian language programmes and beaming special broadcast for listeners in the Central Asia also in their own language for nailing anti-Pakistan propaganda? Our policy makers should be thinking on these lines rather than further uprooting such an effective and useful medium of public instruction like radio.
Postscript :It is good government has, for the moment, postponed this decision.
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