VOICE OF RUSSIA RE-ESTABLISHES ITSELF ON THE CIS AIRWAVES

ITAR-TASS news agency
29 Oct 04

Moscow, 29 October: One of the top priorities of Voice of Russia,
which has represented its country on the international airwaves for
75 years, is a direct dialogue with its listeners, a spokesman for
this state broadcaster, Armen Oganesyan, said today at the close of
the Radio Without Frontiers conference, which gathered directors and
presidents of foreign radio companies.

Voice of Russia carries 400 programmes on various aspects of life
in the country, broadcasting 115 hours a day in Russian and 31
foreign languages. It has a global audience of 109m in over 160
countries, and from its Internet site transmits live programmes in
17 languages. Experts confidently place Voice of Russia among the
top three world broadcasters, alongside the BBC and Voice of America.

In the post-Soviet zone, Voice of Russia has filled the niche left
by the departure from that zone of some Russian media outlets. Its
breakthrough into the CIS airwaves came two years ago with the creation
of its Sodruzhestvo (Commonwealth) channel, but it has only now gained
the opportunity to broadcast on FM. Voice of Russia programmes are
now available in Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia, Lithuania, Kyrgyzstan and
Tajikistan, and the station began domestic broadcasting in Azerbaijan
in October this year.