By Sabir Mustafa, Editor, BBC Bangla
There are celebrations all around. But it's not only Bangladesh which is celebrating an anniversary. The BBC's Bengali service, known simply as BBC Bangla, is also celebrating a landmark year in 2011.
It is perhaps fitting that Bangladesh and BBC Bangla are celebrating landmarks at the same time. The birth of Bangladesh was one of the most important periods in the 70-year history of the BBC's Bengali service.
The people of Bangladesh did not need blind, partisan support from the BBC. In turn, the BBC, guided by its editorial values which demand scrupulous attention to impartiality and balance, could not offer such support either. The BBC simply broadcast news and analysis of events as they unfolded in the then East Pakistan, without distortion and without fear.
The BBC brought news of the war and what was going on in East Pakistan to its Bengali-speaking audiences as well as its listeners worldwide through English and other languages. The BBC's adherence to accuracy and impartiality meant that its audiences learnt of the facts. Those broadcasts enabled the BBC to earn the trust of the people of Bangladesh, which remains largely intact to this day.
Although BBC Bangla is celebrating its 70th anniversary in December, it was on October 11, 1941, that the BBC's Bengali-language programme was launched, with a 15-minute talk written by the author George Orwell. At that time it was just a weekly programme. Seventy years later, BBC Bangla broadcasts two morning and two evening programmes every day.
These programmes are no longer the musings of one man, no matter how brilliant, but packed with news reports on latest important events from around the world. There are hard-hitting interviews, radio documentaries on a wide range of subjects, long radio and online features, and live phone-in programmes where listeners have their say.
BBC Bangla today boasts a website: bbcbangla.com, which showcases the best of its radio programmes as well additional news and feature elements. A year ago BBC Bangla launched a news update service on mobile phones across Bangladesh, which can be accessed on all six networks in the country by dialling 16262.
Over the years, the BBC has developed close transmission partnership with the state broadcaster, Bangladesh Betar, to relay English and Bengali programmes on FM in major cities across the country. The first was FM 100 in Dhaka in 1994, which developed into a 12-hour service with 10 hours of English output from BBC World Service, and two hours of Bangla programming.
Later, in 2008, the BBC signed agreements to relay the four Bangla programmes on FM in Chittagong, Khulna, Rajshahi, Sylhet, Rangpur and Comilla. A fair amount of technical and other difficulties had to be overcome at these stations, but by the end of 2011 these cities were witnessing a steady increase in radio audiences.
The shift from short-wave listening to FM -- which we have observed in developed as well as many developing countries -- is beginning to take shape in Bangladesh as well.
At the same time, the BBC recognised that overall radio listening was declining gradually. In its place, television was emerging as the medium of choice -- whether to consume news and current affairs, or entertainment, or educational information. This recognition led to BBC Bangla making efforts to establish its presence at the Bangladeshi television landscape, even when radio remained its most important platform.
The first breakthrough happened in 2005, when BBC Bangla was approached by the BBC's international charity arm, the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WSTnow BBC Media Action) to collaborate on production of eight debate programmes. BBC Bangla provided the editorial input while WST managed the production. A partnership was forged with local station Channel I, to film the debates and put them on air.
The initial eight debates were each based on a single topic such as education, corruption, justice, governance etc. The success of what turned out to be the first phase of Bangladesh Sanglap encouraged the BBC to think of a slimmer, more sustainable and more topical version of the programme to take forward.
Between September 2006 and January 2010, BBC Bangla produced, in collaboration with Channel I, nearly 150 episodes of the programme. The coasts of Bhola and Mongla, the tea gardens of Sylhet, the banks of the Jamuna in Sirajganj and the dried-up Gorai in Kushtia, the hilly setting of Rangamati and the sand beaches of Cox's Bazar were just few of those locations outside Dhaka.
BBC Bangla has evolved with time: expansion on FM, mobile-phone bulletins, use of Facebook, reinforcing website and gaining a presence at the television landscape of Bangladesh.
The passage of time has changed many things: the way BBC Bangla works, the technology it uses, the market in which it operates and the listening habits of its audiences. But one thing has not changed -- the high regard in which it is held in Bangladesh.
(Source : The Daily Star, Dhaka, Bangladesh via www.kimandrewelliott.com)
