Broadcasting Forforeign Muslims Audiences

Broadcasting Forforeign Muslims Audiences in 2016

Four of the five broadcast entities under the supervision of the BBG provided programming for countries with large Muslim populations in 2016: the Voice of America (VOA), the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (Alhurra TV, Radio Sawa, and Afia Darfur), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), and Radio Free Asia (RFA)

_ Fifteen of RFE/RL's broadcast languages – approximately two-thirds of the total – were directed to regions with majority-Muslim populations, including Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, the Kyrgyz Republic, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Additional broadcasting to regions in the Russian Federation included the majority Muslim populations of Bashkortostan, the North Caucasus, and Tatarstan.

_ VOA has been particularly successful in reaching non-Arabic-speaking Muslim audiences in Afghanistan, the Balkans, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Tanzania, among other places.

_ The Middle East Broadcasting Networks – Alhurra Television, Radio Sawa, and Afia Darfur – broadcast to more than 340 million people.

_ MBN launched the Raise Your Voice initiative across television, radio, and digital platforms. Raise Your Voice encourages Iraqis to speak out against the underlying causes of violent extremism and look for solutions to unite their country.

_ VOA and RFE/RL provided news and information to Afghanistan and the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region in Dari and Pashto. Together, RFE/RL and VOA reached 53 percent of Afghan adults each week.

_ Radio Free Asia broadcast to the more than 16 million mainly ethnic Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of northwestern China and Central Eurasia.

_ In partnership with Radio Free Asia, the online news operation Benar News reached predominantly Muslim audiences in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. These communities often lacked access to accurate and balanced journalism, but are exposed to a proliferation of violent extremist narratives. Benar News countered those narratives by publishing credible domestic news, features, analysis, and commentary in multiple formats – text, video, and pictures – in five languages: Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Malaysia, Bengali, English, and Thai.This section is provided by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG)