No Audience, Yet Tk 200 Crore Allocated Annually for Bangladesh Betar

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 crore 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 10 crore.

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.

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. 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. 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.