27 June 2017
The BBC Pashto flagship TV programme, BBC Naray Da Wakht (BBC World Right Now), is launching a weekly arts supplement. From Saturday 1 July 2017, the weekly slot, Hunary Shabay (Art Moments), will focus on art and literary news from Afghanistan, Pakistan and from around the world.
BBC Pashto TV Editor, Emal Pasarly, commented: “The region has a vibrant and amazingly diverse cultural scene, and there is a need for an art news programme on TV in Afghanistan and Pakistan to reflect it – and also to bring the world’s cultural news that resonates with our audience. We hope Hunary Shabay will be a welcome addition to the prime-time weekend TV schedule, bringing reports, interviews and commentary from Afghanistan, Pakistan and the rest of the world on everything art. Bollywood or Hollywood, traditional music or pop, books, theatre, exhibitions – you name it, we will bring our viewers the latest from the world of arts.”
Hunary Shabay will be part of the Saturday edition of the daily TV news programme, BBC Naray Da Wakht. On Sundays the programme features the economy and business edition, Da Eqtesad La Narray; on Thursdays – the phone-in edition, Staso Ghag (Have Your Say), while the Friday sports supplement, Lobay, brings sports news.
BBC Naray Da Wakht is broadcast live from London in prime time on the Shamshad TV network in Afghanistan (18.00 local time) and Mashriq TV in Pakistan (18.30 local time). The programme is also available on demand via the BBC Pashto channel on YouTube and the website bbcpashto.com.
BBC Pashto content – on radio, TV, online and on social media – reaches around 7m people in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the rest of the world every week*. The BBC Pashto Facebook has more than 2.8m followers (June 2017), engaging 400,000** people every week. BBC Pashto also connects with its audiences via Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Instagram and SoundCloud.
BBC Pashto is part of the BBC World Service.
(Source : BBC press release)
12 August 2016
The BBC Pashto TV programme BBC Naray Da Wakht (BBC World Right Now) will be part of the daily schedule of Pakistan’s new Pashto-language channel, Mashriq TV, which starts broadcasting on Sunday 14 August.
Broadcast live from London in prime time – 18.30 Pakistan Standard Time – and presented by Sana Safi and Amanullah Atta, BBC Naray Da Wakht brings 24 minutes of key global and regional news reporting. The Friday sports supplement, Lobay, includes in-depth coverage of sporting developments that are of special interest to regional audiences.
The move to bring BBC Naray Da Wakht to Pashto-speakers in Pakistan via Mashriq TV builds on the show’s success in Afghanistan where it has a weekly viewership of 1.6 million via Shamshad TV. It adds to the BBC’ presence in Pakistan where it reaches a weekly audience of 13.1 million people on TV, radio and digital platforms, in Urdu, Pashto and English (2015).
BBC Afghan Editor, Meena Baktash, said: “We are proud that Mashriq TV will carry BBC Naray Da Wakht as part of its inaugural broadcast. A quarter of BBC Pashto’s global weekly audience of 6.7 million people is in Pakistan, and we hope that our programme’s daily broadcasts via Mashriq TV will make our content even more accessible to them. We are looking forward to this collaboration.”
Based in Peshawar, Mashriq TV aims at reaching Pashto-speaking audiences in north-western Pakistan and Islamabad. CEO, Mashriq TV, Syed Ayaz Badshah commented: “Launching a channel from Peshawar has been a great endeavour which we hope will help revive the entrepreneurial spirit in the region. We welcome this rebroadcasting collaboration with the BBC and are looking forward to the daily broadcasts of the BBC Pashto programme – they set a high standard for our editorial team to live up to.”
BBC Naray Da Wakht is also available on demand via the BBC Pashto channel on YouTube and the website bbcpashto.com. BBC Pashto is part of BBC World Service.
(Source: BBC press release)
6 June 2016
To keep Afghan sports fans up to date with this summer’s busy international calendar and beyond, BBC Pashto TV’s sports coverage is getting a major boost with the launch of the weekly live Lobay (Sports) programme. From 10 June, the 10-minute programme will be included in the Friday edition of the daily Pashto TV programme, BBC Naray Da Wakht (BBC World Right Now), bringing in-depth coverage of sporting developments that are of special interest to Afghan audiences.
The first edition of Lobay comes just before the start of the 2016 UEFA European Championship and the Afghan national cricket team’s upcoming tour of the UK, Ireland and Holland. Lobay will feature key moments of the Wimbledon tennis tournament, the England tours by the Sri Lanka and Pakistan cricket teams, and, of course, the main news from Rio 2016.
BBC Pashto TV Editor, Emal Pasarly, commented: “While we always cover sport stories from around the world, interest in sport is also growing among our Pashto-speaking audiences – especially with the Afghan national cricket and football teams doing well at regional and international levels. Lobay gives us an excellent format to deliver weekly analysis, opinions and in-depth reporting. I hope our audiences will make an appointment to watch this new, dynamic programme which is to be a permanent fixture in the BBC Pashto TV offer.”
Lobay is part of the Friday edition of the daily TV programme BBC Naray Da Wakht broadcast live from London in prime time (18.00 Kabul Time) on the Shamshad TV network and repeated on Shamshad TV at 23.00 Kabul Time. The programme is also available on demand via the BBC Pashto channel on YouTube and the website bbcpashto.com.
Two in five adult Afghans consume BBC content each week. BBC Pashto content reaches 6.7 million people in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the rest of the world every week (BBC Global Audience Measure 2016). BBC World Service – of which BBC Afghan service is part – is available to audiences in Afghanistan on multiple platforms in Pashto, Dari, Persian, Uzbek and English.
(Source: BBC press release)
