Three-fourths of Tibetans now have access to TV and radio services,
thanks to the rapid development of the services in the vast and yet
sparsely-populated region.
The Tibet People’s Broadcasting Station was founded in 1959 and
began to offer services to the whole region the following year.
The Tibet TV Station, which was set up at the latest date in China,
was founded in 1985 and could only cover the Lhasa area then.
The whole region currently has two broadcasting stations at the
regional level, 36 medium- and short-wave transmission stations and
relay stations, three cable TV stations and wireless TV stations at
the regional level, 470 TV transmission stations and TV relay
stations.
The Tibet People’s Broadcasting Station operates in the Tibetan and
Han languages.
The Tibet Autonomous Region has only 2.62 million inhabitants, 80
percent of whom are farmers and herdsmen. The region’s TV and radio
coverage has increased at an average annual rate of four percentage
points since 1995. The growth rate amounted to 9.7 percentage
points and 13.1 percentage points respectively last year.
Tibet will invest heavily in making TV and radio services
accessible to every village before 2010.
(People’s Daily 05/10/2001)