NEMBC MEDIA has started a National Multilingual News Service (MNS) and is producing daily news bulletins in 6 languages with plans for expansion
 
Currently the service is in Spanish, Hindi, Arabic, Punjabi, Pacific Islander English and Mandarin with plans to include Indonesian, Vietnamese and an Asian English program this week.
 
Executive Producer Director, Russell Anderson, says “Research shows that ethnic communities are the highest rated group feeling the stress (79%) of this pandemic compared to those people with English as their first language (61%).
 
“Australia is a country known for its media diversity and multilingual community broadcasting plays an important role connecting ethnic communities on a local level; reaching at least 2.3 million listeners on an average per week.
 
“It’s important for the ethnic broadcast sector to produce their own programs in a style that reflects the connectedness of those communities and provides news, health information and empowering stories of diversity.”
 
The MNS is now rolling out in most capital cities across Australia, with more towns and cities coming on board this week and at its full capacity, producing 16 languages a day, this service has the potential to reach 1.7 million non-English speaking people on a weekly basis.
 
“Rather than wait for external funding, the NEMBC is funding the pilot service to show its viability and value. The NEMBC will continue to seek government, non-government and philanthropist support to maintain the service beyond the next few months”, said Mr Anderson.

Subscribe to the radioinfo daily flash briefing podcast on these platforms: Acast, Apple iTunes Podcasts, Podtail, Spotify, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, or wherever you get your podcasts.