BBC Blogs - About the BBC - 20 years of BBC Central Asian service

In the first of two blogs to mark 20 years of BBC broadcasts to Central Asia and the Caucasus, Hamid Ismailov, Editor of Central Asia service, BBC World Service and former BBC Uzbek senior producer (1994-2003) and Head of Central Asia and Caucasus service (2003-2011) reflects on the importance of the service.

I heard about BBC World Service’s plans to start radio services for Central Asia and Caucasus in 1992, in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the independence gained by the former Soviet republics in these regions. I lived in Germany then, and became directly involved in 1994, when the recruitment began for broadcast journalists. Behrouz Afagh - who now heads World Service Journalism for Near East, West and Central Asia - set up and led the service. In the beginning, it included BBC Azeri, BBC Uzbek and BBC Russian for Central Asia and Caucasus. Two years later, in 1996, radio broadcasts in Kazakh and Kyrgyz were launched.

The official reaction in Central Asia and Caucasus to the launch of these services was benign. Welcomed by special messages from the presidents of the Central Asian republics (including the Office of the President of Uzbekistan) and the president of Azerbaijan, they were seen as a recognition of these newly independent countries as they positioned themselves in the global arena. And several countries agreed to carry the BBC programmes on their national channels or frequencies. But the welcome did not last long, and in some of these countries, authorities gradually began to worry about the impact of international media, and stopped carrying BBC programmes along with other international broadcasters on their airwaves.

Today the World Service’s Central Asia Hub delivers news on radio, TV, online and mobiles in Kyrgyz and Uzbek. And the conditions in which the two language services operate in the region are different.

In Uzbekistan, the media is tightly controlled. There are hardly any independent information providers, while independent journalists and activists face scrutiny and harassment. The authorities monitor and control the internet, and many websites are blocked. The BBC Uzbek website is one of them. And while audiences manage to access it via proxy sites, we also use a variety of digital apps to deliver our regional and global news reporting. BBC Uzbek has strong presence on social media, be it Twitter, Instagram or WhatsApp. The BBC Uzbek Facebook account has more likes than any other Uzbek-language account, and our channel on YouTube, which has had over one million views, is the most watched Uzbek-language news channel on this platform.

BBC Uzbek radio broadcasts extend beyond Uzbekistan, bringing the BBC’s unbiased, independent news to north-western Afghanistan provinces with large ethnic Uzbek population. And while audiences in Uzbekistan can only tune in to us on shortwave, in Afghanistan we are available on FM too.

In Kyrgyzstan, where media is more open, and where we have presence on state TV and radio networks, we are known for our ability to spearhead public debate on a wide range of issues and to share practices of how issues are dealt with in other countries. For example, the BBC Kyrgyz TV conversations about film classification and parental guidance in film viewing, and care for old people with dementia led to law-making initiatives in Kyrgyzstan’s parliament.

Our teams provide the BBC’s UK and international news operations with regional insight and expertise. Created by our multilingual journalists, our documentaries and special reports - such as Rustam Qobil’s Live around the Aral Sea to be launched shortly - provide audiences with a perspective that brings together in-depth knowledge of the region on the one hand and the strength of the BBC journalism on the other. As we mark 20 years of broadcasting to and about the region, I think it’s this very fortunate combination that allows us to look with confidence in the future.

Hamid Ismailov is Editor of Central Asia service, BBC World Service