How Afghans get their news

Office of women's paper in Kabul

Despite the fact that many people in rural areas have little or no access to radio or TV sets, Afghanistan has seen a proliferation of media activity in the three years since the ousting of the Taleban. BBC Monitoring's Len Walker takes a look at what's on offer.

Radio currently remains the main source of news for most Afghans. The main state-owned Kabul radio does not cover the entire country, so listeners in the regions often tune in to local broadcasts or foreign stations.

Local broadcasters - whether state, community or NGO-owned - are often tightly controlled by regional political or military leaders.

Media outlets tend to exercise self-censorship to avoid conflict with local authorities or warlords.

Surveys have shown that most Afghans know of the BBC World Service, Voice of America, Radio Free Afghanistan and Iranian radio.

The BBC World Service launched a dedicated schedule of programming for Afghanistan in November 2003. It is also setting up a network of FM transmitters to relay programmes into the provinces, wherever the security situation allows.

Afghans listen to foreign radio stations mainly for news. In Kabul, however, there is a growing trend for listeners to switch to new music stations, such as Radio Kelid and Radio Arman, which play Afghan and regional pop music.

But in rural areas correspondents say that radio ownership is limited and communal listening is popular.

The US-led coalition has distributed over 200,000 clockwork radios across the country that do not need batteries.

Tuning into TV

Access to TV is becoming increasingly widespread

BBC research has shown that television - banned by the Taleban - is poised to overtake radio as a source of news for urban Afghanistan.

In some cities, such as Kabul and Mazar-e Sharif, over 50% of the population is estimated to have access to a set.

Satellite dishes are also widespread in Herat, where an estimated 40% of households in the more prosperous areas have them.

The state broadcaster, Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA), runs radio and TV stations in Kabul and the provinces. The stations operate without centralised political or editorial control from Kabul.

These stations traditionally broadcast for just a few hours a day. They are known to be under funded and to suffer from problems with reception.

Local state-owned television stations are also an important source of news. They feature few, if any, reports from Kabul, and concentrate on the daily activities of local competing political or military leaders.

Despite the increase in air time, tensions remain between the views of pro-Western technocrats and conservative clerics.

Video footage of women singing - shown on Kabul TV - has been a source of conflict between Islamists and reformers. In Herat, cable TV is banned on the grounds that it violates Islamic morality.

Power of the press

Although illiteracy remains a major problem, press titles have expanded rapidly, with some 270 publications now available.

The government funds two national dailies, Hewad and Anis, and several weeklies. Other papers are financed from regional budgets. Most papers have a small circulation in western terms.

Most papers focus on Afghan news and comment. In the independent press, often lively editorials and commentaries crowd out factual news, while the government press tends to reprint material from the local office of the state news agency Bakhtar.

Independent papers founded by individuals and run with their own funds or from foreign aid budgets have fewer subscribers. The Ministry of Information and Culture plans to set up a printing plant in Kabul specifically for independent papers.

But many experts believe Kabul is not ready to sustain a truly independent press, as readership remains small and money is too scarce.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.