site.btaBulgarian National Radio Closes Most of Foreign-language Services

Bulgarian National Radio
Closes Most of Foreign-language
Services


Sofia, June 1 (BTA) - The Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) closes a big part of its foreign-languages service (Radio Bulgaria), BNR Director General Alexander Velev said in an interview for the radio.

Velev said that as of June 1 Radio Bulgaria will discontinue to provide audio information on the Internet. However, the reporters will continue to prepare textual information until the actual closure of the Radio Bulgaria. The web-portal of the BNR will continue to provide information in English and Russian. The broadcasts in Turkish for Bulgarian nationals whose mother tongue is Turkish will continue.

Velev justified the decision of the BNR management with the low interest to the production of Radio Bulgaria.

Chairperson of the Editorial Board of Radio Bulgaria Daniela Konstantinova said on BNR that the decision deprives the radio of unique opportunities as an institution while the situation with the foreign-language broadcasts is the result of their being neglected for a long time by the management. The position of the Editorial Board of Radio Bulgaria was supported by the Union of Bulgarian Journalists whose members recalled the special role for Bulgaria's international standing of the radio's broadcasts for listeners abroad. The Union also proposed that the fate of Radio Bulgaria be decided in a broad public debate.

The foreign-languages service of the national radio started back in 1937. At the moment Radio Bulgaria has programmes in English, German, French, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, Greek, Serbian and Albanian, and in Bulgarian for Bulgarian communities abroad. In the past the number of languages used to be bigger, with the service in Arabian most recently closed, only a few months ago. This triggered sharp criticism in the context of the situation in the Arab world.

Air broadcasts were discontinued in 2012, and the programmes have been available in textual and audio form only on the Internet. PK/ZH
/СН/