MOSCOW, May 7 (Itar-Tass) - Staffs of Russian radio stations mark a professional holiday, Radio Broadcasting Day, Tuesday.
It was on May 7, 1895, that the Russian physicist Alexander Popov designed the first received of radio signals and effectuated the first ever wireless exchange of communication signals, thus opening up the era of radio transmissions.
First occasional radio programs were broadcast in Russia starting from February 1919 by a radio laboratory in the city of Nizhny Novgorod in the Middle Volga area. In 1920, occasional transmissions began from experimental broadcasting stations in Moscow, Kazan and other cities.
The sphere of broadcasting and mass communications has expanded immensely since then. It embraces at present the television, mobile and satellite telecommunications, and the Internet.
The scope of experts who consider Radio Broadcasting Day to be their professional holiday is expanding literally from one year to another.
The way this holiday is marked differs from region to region. For instance, the first open experiment in transmitting a sound signal will be organized in the center of Yekaterinburg, the capital of the heavily industrialized Sverdlovsk region in the Urals.
People in Yekaterinburg will make up a live column that will stretch from the monument to the Bolshevik revolutionary Jacob Sverdlov to the monument to Alexander Popov. They will be supposed to relay a short phrase mouth to mouth.
“The objective of the experiment is to register the time that will be needed to relay a message form one point to another in the absence of radio communications,” an organizer told Itar-Tass.
An Alley of Communications Workers opened in Omsk, Western Siberia, on the eve of the holiday. Some of the trees there were planted by the veterans of the regional state broadcasting company.
Television in the Altai territory is changing over to the most advanced digital broadcasting standard DVB-T2. The assimilation of the new standard will begin with the regional capital Barnaul and three townships adjoining it.
Development of new technologies has taken away a part of audiences from radio stations. According to the data provided by the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center /VCIOM/, about 60% Russians call themselves radio listeners today, while the figure registered in 2006 was 92%.
Almost 92% respondents say they learn the news from television. Printed media is used as a source of information by another 20% people, while the Internet is the prime source of news for 15%.
On the face of it, only 12% Russians say they get the news over the radio.
Station executives hope in the meantime the full transition of radio stations to the digital format, which is expected to be over by 2015, will beef up the popularity of this oldest broadcasting medium.