Last week, Pakistan’s Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb inaugurated 12 new studios which were set up on modern lines at Radio Pakistan under a reform agenda by the incumbent government.

The minister said that the government had rolled out a reform programme to upgrade and digitize Radio Pakistan on war footing. A comprehensive business plan had also been worked out to transform Radio Pakistan into a financially viable organization.

The studios she inaugurated were meant for round the clock sports transmission of Radio Pakistan FM at 94 frequency, broadcast of programmes in 11 regional languages, dedicated platform for discussing environmental challenges and highlight the country’s biodiversity, wildlife, water management, forest conservation and management. A world service was also launched to provide all sort of news, culture and heritage related content to the overseas Pakistanis.

Marriyum said the government had approved a digital DRM transmitter project worth Rs 4 billion in the current year’s Public Sector Development Programme.

The project would be launched soon in Rawat, she said, adding that Radio Pakistan’s Digital Migration would take the state broadcaster’s transmissions in clear sound not only across the length and breadth of the country but also beyond its borders.

This follows the June official announcement that the Federal Ministry for Planning Development and Special Initiatives had approved the upgrade of the HPT Rawat transmitting station with the acquisition of a 1000 KW DRM enabled medium wave transmitter.

This is part of phase 1 of a three-phase DRM digitisation plan of the public Pakistani broadcaster; in effect, this signifies that Pakistan has embraced the DRM standard in all bands for the whole country.