Voice of America Bangla Radio

Voice of America (VOA) is the government-owned broadcaster of the United States of America. Satellite, F.M., AM, and shortwave radio frequencies distribute their broadcasts. They are also streamed on individual language service websites, social media sites, and mobile platforms. Voice of America provides a wide range of programming for radio, T.V., and the Internet outside of the U.S. in 43 languages. Among them, Voice of America Bangla broadcasts programs in the Bengali Language.

Voice of America began to broadcast in Bengali in July 1954 from New York, USA. In the beginning years, Voice of America broadcasted Bengali programs once a week for 15 minutes. In 1957, the broadcast time was subsequently increased to 30 minutes a week. On January 1, 1958, Voice of America, Bangla, started to broadcast regular programs from Washington DC, USA. In that time, it featured two distinct 30 minutes programs for listeners in East Pakistan (Currently Bangladesh), and a program for the West Bengal, India. In 1966, Voice of America Bangla combined the two shows into one sixty-minute program. On April 20, 1980, a new 30-minute program, the breakfast show, was added in addition to the daily one-hour evening broadcast. The breakfast show became very popular due to the time difference between the USA and Bangladesh. When the breakfast show started in the morning in the USA, due to the time difference, it was peak hour in both Bangladesh and the Indian State of West Bengal.

Voice of America Bangla’s newsroom has many dedicated journalists and dozens of full-time domestic and overseas correspondents who are employees of the U.S. government or paid contractors. Voice of America Bangla not only broadcasts news but also features programs that cover topics such as News Analysis, sports news, and analysis, Interviews of notable personalities, entertainment, health, science, technology, youth, education, career, and many more for its listeners.