BBS to launch another radio station by the end of this year

By Saraswati

Service (BBS) has a plan up its sleeves to launch another radio station by the fall of this year.

The new station will broadcast only in Dzongkha language and will be more like an entertainment broadcaster.

“This is to promote Dzongkha language,” said the new Managing Director of BBS, Thinley Dorji. He said it will be much lighter than the present broadcast and will feature current affairs.

“It will be lighter but will serve its very purpose of a Public Service Broadcaster,” he said.

The general manager of the BBS radio station, Kesang, said they are still working on the plan. “We will first have to put the infrastructure in place and think about it,” he said. “We will have to install transmitters in all the 20 dzongkhags and this will take time,” he added.

Meanwhile BBS is also planning to increase the television air time by few hours. BBS also has plans to go 24/7 in the future. “It would be wiser to work for the betterment of the existing channel and then move to another,” said Thinley Dorji, adding that the problem of going 24/7 in Bhutan is that there will be no viewership after 11 pm.

He said if BBS has to go round the clock, it will have to deploy additional manpower and resources which would only aggravate costs.

From Business Bhutan, August 27, 2011