BBC Asian Network is a British radio station serving those originating from and around the Indian subcontinent. The music and news comes out of the main urban areas where there are significant communities with these backgrounds. The station has production centres in Birmingham, Leicester and London (Television Centre & Western House). Its 'parent' station is BBC Radio 2 at Western House and it is part of the BBC Audio and Music division.
BBC Asian Network broadcasts mainly in English, but also have programmes in five south Asian languages – Hindi/Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali, Gujarati and the Mirpuri dialect of the Potwari language. Despite the name, Asian Network serves only those from India and the surrounding region; with the vast majority of Asia not catered for. The station's output consists largely of music and talk programmes, although there is a daily documentary series Asian Network Reports and a now-discontinued daily soap opera Silver Street. Over mid-2009, the Asian network provided coverage at melas across the UK as part of the 'Summer Of Melas'.
In March 2010 the station, which has the highest per-listener budget of all UK radio stations, was threatened with closure, along with BBC 6 Music. A year later, following consultation the BBC Trust announced it was reconsidering its plan to close the station in favour of reducing its budget, although it stressed no final decision had been made.
Read more about BBC Asian Network: Programmes and Presenters
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