Radio has incredible power. Radio networks work even in places where mobile networks do not work. The Bangladesh Betar has a strong wave strength. Even many of the advanced countries don’t have such a powerful wave length.
The government spends more than Tk 2 billion for this state-owned wireless media. Bangladesh Betar has 3,000 employees at the 14 centres across the country, including more than 500 BCS officials. Despite all this, Bangladesh Betar is not popular and hardly has many listeners. This government agency has huge expenditure , but earns less than Tk 100 million.
People say they don’t need it. They don’t find anything special in the news bulletins or it never plays good music. Experts say there is no alternative to bringing about changes in Bangladesh Betar's policy and make it contemporarily relevant.
In 1997, a plan a proposal was submitted by former secretary Asafuddowlah to make Bangladesh Betar popular and to grow its potential. However, that plan didn’t see the light of day. The radio officials felt a state-owned organisation does not need to make money.
Technology for show?
The Bangladesh Betar broadcasts programmes all day. No matter what you use – radio or mobile apps – the programmes are always on. These programmes could be heard from different corners of the country using 17 medium wave transmitters and 34 FM transmitters. The technologies used by the Bangladesh Betar are simply incredible.
Where the private radio stations have only one or two studios, Bangladesh Betar has 81 studios. There are 15 studios in Dhaka alone. It has advanced technology waves, recording and broadcasting systems. For instance, it uses 1000-KW short waves, which enables people to hear the programmes from any point of the country.
However, there is no study on how many people now listen to radio programmes. So the authorities don’t have any idea as to what sorts of programmes the audiences want.
Prothom Alo spoke to 10 audiences of different ages. The elderly people among them said they have tons of memories with the radio. Some of these are related to several historic incidents. However, they don’t need radio any more.
The youths say they prefer private radio stations over Bangladesh Betar. The presenters of private radio stations understand their demands more easily. They even choose songs considering the choice of the youth.
Although there is no study, audience engagement in various programmes of Bangladesh Betar can be assumed from the social media posts promoting radio programmes.
Bangladesh Betar broadcast the joint statement of the chief adviser and Malaysia prime minister live on Facebook on 4 October. Different songs were played for 50 minutes before the 81-minute programme. Some 82 people reacted to that post over a week. Some 10 people commented on that post. Same is the quality of all the other radio programmes broadcast live on Facebook.
Programmes of some sub-stations are posted on Facebook a few months prior to on-air time. The presentations of these programmes are quite poor due to bad light, faulty camera frames and for not using advanced technologies.
Advertisements of 13 Facebook comment-based programmes under the same title – ‘Tomar Pochhonder Gaan’ have been posted on the page of Bangladesh Betar from 24 September to 5 October. These advertisements only contained photos of the 52 anchors of the programmes. The post did not even contain any phone number to place the requests.
There is no visible difference in the presentations of the news and live streaming. It proves that the Bangladesh Betar could not make their employees technologically efficient. However, there is no lack of allocations for this government agency. Those allocations came from the money that people pay as taxes.
Endless source of money
Bangladesh Betar is one of the oldest government agencies of the country. The initiative taken during the British rule under the name of ‘Dhaka Dhoni Bistar’ in 1939 in Old Dhaka is now known as the Bangladesh Betar.
Accounts department officials say nearly Tk 2.1 billion has been allocated for Bangladesh Betar this year. The amount was more than Tk in the previous year too.
The officials say some 45 per cent of the allocations are spent for the salary and allowances of the radio employees. The state owned broadcasting media has a total of 2,900 employees. Of them, 500 are BCS (Bangladesh Civil Service) cadres.
Around 1,000 of the Bangladesh Betar employees work in the news section. This account is based on the employees at the 14 radio stations. Recently 35 new posts have been created in the programme division. Apart from this, there are 35,000 listed artistes of Bangladesh Betar. They get an honorarium of Tk 200-1,300 depending on categories.
Several Bangladesh Betar officials raised questions as to whether such a huge manpower is needed or not. Willing to be unnamed, they told Prothom Alo many of these officials could be posted to different ministries.
Counting all the stations of the country, 85-86 news bulletins are aired at the radio every day. Other than Bangla, the bulletins are also broadcast in nine other languages. There are English, Arabic, Hindi and Nepalese among those nine languages alongside several languages of the ethnic minority communities of Bangladesh.
But, the matter is how many people listen to these bulletins? Though there’s no such survey, an idea of that can be derived from the advertisement revenue of Bangladesh Betar. Bangladesh Betar and Bangladesh Television have always worked as the ‘compliant tool of campaign’ for the government. Yet, the Bangladesh Betar had created examples of better quality programmes.
The Bangladesh Betar has a very limited source of income. The radio makes revenue basically from advertisements and rents of transmitters. Other private radios of the country have to rent transmitters from the Bangladesh Betar for transmission. Meanwhile, advertisements are broadcast in between programmes and news bulletins. However, the radio station made a revenue of only Tk 60 million (Tk 6 crore) in the last fiscal including these all.
On condition of anonymity two officials of the organisation told Prothom Alo that the annual revenue of the radio has indeed been fluctuating within Tk 90 to 100 million (Tk 9 to 10 crore) for the last four to five years.
Additional director general of the news section at Dhaka centre of the Bangladesh Betar, ASM Zahid told Prothom Alo, “Commercial advertisements are run during news bulletins. But the number audience has decline for real. That’s why attempts are being made to run them on audio-visual mediums by changing the contents.”
M Obaidur Rahman has been working as a news presenter at the radio for three decades. He told Prothom Alo that he used to receive Tk 75 per bulletin as a news presenter of the ‘Ga’ category back in 1995. Now in 2024, he receives Tk 600 per bulletin being included in the special category.
People included in the special category can present one news bulletin per week. There used to be advertisements during news bulletins before. However, he has not been finding advertisements while presenting news for the last five to six years, added M Obaidur Rahman.
When asked where does the expenses of running an organisation with such huge infrastructure come from, director general of Bangladesh Betar Rabindra Sri Barua told Prothom Alo that the rate of commercial advertisement is low. The main job of the state media is to serve information, entertainment and spread education. There’s no obligation that it has to be commercially profitable.
Programme crisis
Programmes and dramas made and aired from the Dhaka Centre of Bangladesh Betar won the international Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union Award in 2019 and the PIB-A2I media Award in 2021. Wave-based medium, the Bangladesh Betar can broadcast live games as well as parliamentary sessions.
Many audience however complains that the organisation do not care about their preferences. The songs of quality artistes have been replaced by the substandard music of many newly listed artistes. So, they have no interest in radio.
Though there’s a trend of decline in the popularity of radio all over the world, people in the West European countries (United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Luxemburg), Nordic countries (Sweden, Denmark, and Finland) as well as Australia still have an interest in radio and this medium is popular there.
While the commission for framing rules and regulations for the autonomy of Bangladesh Betar and Bangladesh Television had prepared a significant report keeping all of these in mind back in 1997, it never come to light.
Proposal lost in dark
During the regime of Awami League back in 1996, a 16-member commission for framing rules and regulations for autonomy was formed with a secretary at the time and media personality Mohammad Asafuddowla as the chairman.
The commission had submitted a report with recommendations for complete autonomy of Bangladesh Betar and Bangladesh Television in the reality of Bangladesh based on their experience of travelling several countries including the UK, India and Philippines.
The first section of that report had mentioned next year that keeping the changing state of the world, the free flow of information and the expansion of free satellite in mind, it becomes an inevitable fact that freeing radio and television from government control is obvious in this age. So, the sooner these two mediums are given autonomy the better. That will also boost the country’s image at the global level.
Professor at the mass communication and journalism department of Dhaka University, Shameem Reza has done a research on community radio. When asked if a media like the Bangladesh Betar should run with public tax money just because it is a tool of campaign for the government, or what kind of changes are required there, he told Prothom Alo that the editorial policy of the Bangladesh Betar needs to be changed.
The financial aspect of this has to be made autonomous. Unless the radio is faced with competition, they will not think of changing the subjects of its prorammes and news bulletins. Since the organisation is highly dependent of bureaucrats, there’s remains no continuity among those who work here.
The recruitment policy of the organisation needs to be changed as well. It’s possible to run the organisation even with one-tenth of the current staff, if only they are skilled. If needed, it can also be given autonomy. However, accountability must be ensured then, Shameem Reza added.