Voice of America Washington, DC 20547 Tel: (202) 619-2538 Fax: (202) 619-1241 E-mail: pubaff@ibb.gov

VOA Opens New 24 Hour Station In Azerbaijan

Washington, D.C., July 8, 1999 -- At a ceremony in Baku in late June, the Voice of America officially inaugurated its Azerbaijan affiliate, VOA-Azerbaijan 101 FM. Some 300 people, including nearly every newspaper editor in Azerbaijan, attend the opening ceremony.

Ismail Dahiyat, Director of VOA's Near East and North Africa Division, who attended the opening ceremony, said, "This is a unique situation. VOA has a license to operate the FM station (101) 24 hours a day."

The station uses a transmitter owned by a local newspaper to broadcast the programs in the city of Baku, where more than a third of Azerbaijan's 8 million people are concentrated.

The programming is in four languages: 18 hours of English, including music; five and a half hours in Russian, half an hour in Azeri, and 15 minutes in Turkish. According to Dahiyat, VOA will add a new daily 10-minute news program in Azeri to its broadcasts in the future.

Dahiyat explained that VOA/Azerbaijan 101 FM can serve as a model for VOA affiliates in other countries, as well as a model for leasing channels from local governments. He added, "People I met in Azerbaijan are very supportive of VOA. In a way, we see this as a contribution to the development of local private media and training of future journalists."

Azerbaijan is an oil-rich republic, situated to the south of Russia. Rafael Huseynov, Professor of Persian literature and VOA's stringer in Azerbaijan, said, "The current audience is mostly foreigners who work and live in Azerbaijan, but VOA is also popular among beginners in English for its Special English programs." He added, "Despite the fact that VOA has competitors in the region such as Radio Free Europe and BBC, VOA programs are getting more popular because of their high level of professionalism."

The Voice of America is the international broadcast service of the U.S. Government, broadcasting international, regional, and United States news in 53 languages to an estimated weekly audience of 83 million listeners.

Contact: George Mackenzie
Phone: (202) 619-2538
E-mail: pubaff@voa.gov