Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (PBC)

The Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (PBC), commonly known as Radio Pakistan, is Pakistan’s federal state radio broadcaster. Its first transmission went out at midnight on 14 August 1947 under the name Pakistan Broadcasting Service. It was converted into the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation on 20 December 1972 and subsequently placed on a statutory footing by the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation Act 1973. Its World Service was inaugurated on 21 April 1973. PBC began FM broadcasting in Karachi in 1993, expanding it to Lahore and Islamabad later that year, while its FM 101 network was launched on 1 October 1998. PBC states that its AM, shortwave and FM network reaches 98% of Pakistan’s population and 80% of its territory.

Media assets

Domestic radio: national and regional services on medium wave and FM. The News and Current Affairs Channel broadcasts from five medium-wave transmitters; PBC’s channel page describes a 13-hour daily service from Islamabad and eight hours daily from the provincial headquarters, rather than a continuous 24-hour network.

FM networks: FM 101, FM 93, Saut-ul-Quran FM 93.4 and Planet 94, operating through stations in Islamabad and across the provinces.

International broadcasting: a World Service directed principally towards the Middle East and Western Europe, including the United Kingdom, alongside separate External Services in Bangla, Chinese, Dari, Gujarati, Hindi, Nepali, Pashto, Persian, Sinhala and Tamil.

Ownership and governance

PBC is a federal statutory corporation established under the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation Act. The Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (Amendment) Act 2024, which received presidential assent on 14 June 2024, also deemed it a state-owned enterprise for the purposes of the State-Owned Enterprises (Governance and Operations) Act 2023. It remains within the administrative portfolio of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

The 2024 amendment substantially changed the composition of its Board of Directors, a change made to satisfy the requirement of the SOE Act that independent directors outnumber ex-officio members, and passed as part of a package fulfilling International Monetary Fund conditions. The enacted law provides for nine independent members appointed by the federal government, increased from four, with representation extended to Islamabad Capital Territory, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir alongside the four provinces, and seven ex-officio members:

• the Secretary of the division responsible for PBC;
• an Additional Foreign Secretary;
• an Additional Secretary of the Finance Division;
• the Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations;
• the Managing Director of the Pakistan Television Corporation;
• the Director General of PBC; and
• a representative of the Interior Division.

The federal government appoints the chair from among the independent members. Independent members serve three-year terms and may hold no more than two consecutive terms, but they remain government appointees and may be removed under the procedures of the State-Owned Enterprises Act.

The statutory seat held by the Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations places the military’s media directorate directly within the governance of the national radio broadcaster. The board also includes representatives of the ministries responsible for information, foreign affairs, finance and the interior, as well as the chief executives of PBC and Pakistan Television.

In July 2025, the Cabinet Committee on State-Owned Enterprises approved six independent directors for PBC: Sadia Khan, Jehangir Khan, Sadiqa Sultan, Nasira Azim Khan, Khan Bibi and Nadeem Haider Kiyani. These appointments expanded participation beyond serving government officials, but the directors were selected through a government-controlled process. A complete, current official roster identifying all nine independent members and the serving chair was not located in the publicly accessible records reviewed for this profile.

The enacted amendment substitutes Section 8 of the 1973 Act to provide that the Director General is appointed by the Board, on such terms as the Board prescribes. This differs from an earlier version of the reform, reported when the bill passed both houses in June 2024, under which the federal government would have made the appointment on the Board’s recommendation. Saeed Ahmed Shaikh assumed charge as Director General on 7 November 2023 and remained in office in 2026.

A separate structural question concerns PBC’s status within the state-owned-enterprise system. In June 2024, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting proposed that PBC be designated a strategic state-owned enterprise. The submission also indicated that privatisation could be considered in the future following financial restructuring. No evidence was identified that PBC had been privatised or that its public ownership had otherwise changed by July 2026. The 2024 amendment itself made PBC an SOE but did not privatise it.

Source of funding and budget

PBC is predominantly financed by the federal government, although it also earns income from advertising, programme sales, property and transmitter leasing, and other commercial activities. Its governing legislation identifies federal grants, government payments and subsidies, licence fees, advertising and programme sales among its possible sources of revenue.

For FY2022–23, PBC reported an estimated federal grant of PKR 4.628 billion against projected expenditure of PKR 7.257 billion. The grant therefore represented approximately 64% of projected expenditure, before any additional government payments or state-derived income were considered. PBC attributed continuing financial difficulties to the gap between its public-service obligations and available revenue.

In FY2024–25, PBC received a federal allocation of PKR 6.413 billion, of which PKR 6.183 billion had been released by March 2025. The corporation has continued trying to increase commercial income: in May 2026, its Director General said rental income was expected to reach PKR 1 billion by the end of the fiscal year. That figure was a projected target rather than a published audited result, and no subsequent audited evidence was found showing that commercial income had overtaken federal support.

Financial pressure has previously led to substantial workforce reductions. In 2020, PBC terminated 749 contract employees while reporting a projected deficit of approximately PKR 943 million for FY2020–21.

The status of the electricity-bill licence fee is unclear. In 2023, the government was reported to have adopted a recommendation to increase the existing PKR 35 monthly television fee collected through electricity bills to PKR 50. Contemporary reporting stated that the additional PKR 15 would support PBC, but no authoritative public evidence was identified confirming that the radio component was implemented, collected and remitted to the corporation.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced the abolition of the PKR 35 television fee on 29 June 2025, and the Information Minister referred in January 2026 to Pakistan Television operating after the fee’s abolition. Nevertheless, publicly accessible consumer guidance continued to state that a PKR 35 television fee was being charged to domestic electricity customers. The implementation status of the television fee, and of any proposed PKR 15 radio component, must therefore be treated as unresolved.

On the State Media Matrix funding test, the available evidence supports coding PBC as predominantly state-funded. The most recent usable breakdown places the federal grant above the Matrix’s more-than-50% threshold, while later federal allocations remain substantial and no audited evidence demonstrates that commercial revenue has replaced the government as PBC’s principal source of support.

Editorial independence

PBC’s legislation contains an explicit tension between impartial broadcasting and government direction. The Act instructs the corporation, as far as possible, to provide factual, accurate and impartial news. At the same time, it requires PBC to carry out federal government instructions concerning the general pattern and policies of its programmes, announcements and news. It further provides that the corporation must be guided by federal government instructions on matters of policy and that the government is the sole judge of whether a question is a question of policy. These provisions give the executive a direct statutory route for influencing editorial and programming decisions.

PBC’s own description of its mission includes informing audiences about government policies, programmes and achievements, alongside providing information about opposition and other stakeholder positions. The statutory instruction power, government-controlled board appointments and representation of the military’s media directorate prevent this public-service language from amounting to an enforceable editorial firewall.

The Act requires financial accounts to be audited and provides for audited statements and reports to be submitted to the government and made available for public inspection. The problem is therefore not the complete absence of statutory financial auditing. Rather, no publicly accessible PBC-specific system was identified for independently auditing editorial performance, investigating political interference or assessing compliance with public-service-media standards. No independent editorial ombudsman, enforceable editorial charter or external complaints body specific to PBC was identified.

AI and digital policy

PBC distributes content through its website, online streaming services and social-media channels. No publicly accessible PBC editorial policy was identified governing generative artificial intelligence, synthetic media, automated content production or the disclosure of AI-assisted material.

Pakistan adopted a National Artificial Intelligence Policy in July 2025 and issued the Islamabad AI Declaration in February 2026. These instruments set broader national objectives and principles for responsible AI, including transparency, accountability and the governance of public-sector AI systems. They do not constitute a PBC-specific editorial framework and do not establish detailed rules for the use or disclosure of AI-generated material in state broadcasting.

Classification rationale

PBC remains classified State-Controlled (SC), meeting all three conditions of the State Media Matrix.

It is predominantly state-funded. The latest usable financial breakdown places the federal grant above the Matrix’s more-than-50% threshold, subsequent federal allocations remain substantial, and no audited evidence demonstrates that commercial or audience-derived revenue has replaced the state as the broadcaster’s principal funder.

It is state-owned and state-governed. PBC is a federal statutory corporation legally deemed a state-owned enterprise and administratively assigned to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The federal government appoints all independent board members and chooses the chair from among them. Seven ex-officio seats are held by senior state officials and public-sector executives, including the head of the military’s media directorate.

Its editorial agenda is subject to state control. The PBC Act expressly authorises the federal government to issue instructions concerning programming, announcements and news, requires the corporation to follow government policy directions and makes the federal government the sole judge of what constitutes a policy matter. No independent editorial oversight system or enforceable institutional firewall counterbalances those powers.

The 2024 governance reform is nevertheless a relevant countervailing development. Independent members now have a statutory numerical majority over the ex-officio bloc, the chair must be selected from among the independent members, independent members receive fixed terms and the board formally appoints the Director General. These changes create greater formal separation than the previous arrangement.

They do not alter the classification because the federal government appoints the independent members and chair, the board retains a large bloc of senior government and military representatives, and the executive’s statutory authority to direct PBC’s programming and news remains in force.

July 2026