By Saddia Mazhar,
Just close your eyes for a while and imagine that you were struggling hard to achieve something and finally you achieve your goal. It had the honor of publicly announcing Pakistan’s independence from Britain on 13 August 1947 at 11:59 pm. Mustafa Ali Hamdani made the announcement from Lahore in Urdu and English, while Abdullah Jan Maghmoom made the announcement from Peshawar in Pashto.
The announcement was heard as follows:
‘Greetings Pakistan Broadcasting Service. We are speaking from Lahore. The night between the the thirteenth and fourteenth of August, year forty-seven. It is twelve o’clock. Dawn of
Freedom’. Radio Pakistan is still continuing with its historical role in the promotion of culture and providing real time information to the people of far – flung areas of Pakistan. Radio is a very important device in both developing and fully developed countries for information provision. It is able to function when television stations are not and is more easily accessed than the newspaper is. The information that is given over the radio is able to be broadcast to a large number of listeners and provides them with instantaneous information.
“There was a time when everyone, from poets to writers to performing artistes, was associated with radio”. Is it really true that, “radio is now dead and finished’. Radio is still an important source of communication in the 21st century because it provides an opportunity for people who
cannot access television and cannot read to keep up-to-date on the news and trends. Radio also provides portable entertainment and information for many; according to an American Media
Services survey, 78 percent of individuals listen to radio in the car.
Radio Pakistan With its network of regional radio stations working for helping the rural areas and people by generating programs for Formers, women working at home and students trying to continue their studies through distance learning. A wide range of radio stations are popular in Pakistan. However, most focus on entertainment
programming as opposed to national or local news. Popularity rankings differ substantially from province to province (reflecting in part linguistic differences), but state-run Pakistan Radio continues to be the dominate player nationally. The Pakistan Radio network features 31
different regional and local stations and broadcasts programming in 16 languages.
The radio is important for already developed countries because it not only provides news information, but it also provides entertainment. Despite the onslaught of digital music, radio stations still play the top hits in various music genres. Radio stations give listeners new music to
listen to while also offering a variety of music options. The radio also allows people to keep up- to-date with the latest trends in popular culture. In the era of IT and Internet ,radio is still an important tool to reach the audience .On 3rd November 2011 UNESCO announced to celebrate WORLD RADIO DAY every year on 13th February .According to the International Telecommunication almost 90% of world population
have access to Radio signals. Approximately there are 51 thousand and 884 Radio stations are working in which 60% Radio stations are in America , Philippine, Turkey, France, Russia, Brazil and United kingdom.
Pakistan have almost 203 radio stations .147 Private FM stations and 28 stations are owned by different universities for their communication students .According to a survey conducted by BBC in Pakistan in 2008,30% young boys and 20% girls enjoy listening radio on their mobile phones. In under develop countries even different NGOs do their public campaigns through Radio to access the maximum area of neglected community. A portable device ,do not need any electricity to be charged and even not very expensive is yet a most important source of communication all over the world.
