Bulgarian National Radio: the 78-year-old mammoth with a contemporary twist

First of all, let me tell you that the Bulgarian National Radio has got its own chapel. I found this interesting and unusual:

An Orthodox chapel within the premises of the BNR.

We went to visit the Bulgarian National Radio on one of our networking days. The government-funded media giant has got four major radio channels (national, international), as well as eight regional ones across Bulgaria.

Around 1480 people are currently employed by the BNR - most of them at one of the two headquarter buildings in Sofia, others as regional correspondents. (To put the figures into context, there are around 7.3 million people currently living in Bulgaria, so the BNR staff would account for a 0.02 percent of the population).     

The two national channels are Horizont and Hristo Botev. The first one specialises in news, comments, interviews; between the spoken parts it plays contemporary popular music. Horizont is the most popular radio in Bulgaria, and is often considered the least biased.

Radio Hristo Botev, named after a famous poet and revolutionary, is a high brow cultural channel. On the menu are classical music programmes, concerts, radio theatre plays, cultural news.

The Bulgarian National Radio since its very beginnings has been a promoter of cultural activities in Bulgaria. It has got a record studio that has been helping the less commercially-successful musicians (classical, jazz, folk) to publish their work, a radio theatre, a children's choir, a symphony orchestra, even a big band. The BNR's legendary first director Sirak Skitnink (an 'Orphan Wanderer', real name Panaiot Todorov Hristov, 1883-1943) was a poet and painter himself.    

To give the 78-year-old BNR a modern twist, an innovative internet radio channel Binar was started in 2012 (my colleague Sarah did a post about Binar's one-year birthday party earlier in July). The music Binar plays is contemporary, both popular one and one drifting towards indie. Binar is a bit more than traditional radio as it also plays videos (of interviews in the studio; music clips) on its website.      
    
Finally, the BNR's fourth major channel is the international Radio Bulgaria. This one is aimed at promoting Bulgarian culture around the world and informing about happenings in Bulgaria. As one would expect from an international channel, Radio Bulgaria has got information in eleven languages. Similarly to Binar, the latter channel is internet-based and has got multimedia (images, sounds, videos) on its website.

Among the regional channels, Radio Sofia informs about what is happening in & around the Bulgarian capital; the other cities covered by regional radio channels include Plovdiv, Varna, Bourgas, Stara Zagora, among others.    

At the BNR's radio theatre studio.

The foyer of the BNR building in Sofia.

Mocking a radio show at Binar's studio.

A decree from 1935 announcing the start of Bulgarian National Radio. A radio station initiated by a group of enthusiasts several years earlier was nationalised by Tsar Boris III.

Happy birthday, Binar! Cake, balloons and swing in the park

Happy birthday, Binar!

Last week I attended a very special birthday party. Binar, the internet radio of the Bulgarian National Radio was celebrating the first year of life, and they prepared a great party. Well, actually, they celebrated TWO parties, both in the same day. I love birthday parties (no, really) so I expend a great time with them.

The first part was in the BNR building. There were a lot of balloons, country hats, wine and one of the best cakes I’ve tasted in my life. The people who run Binar made their speeches; they cut the cake (yummy!) and the brand Max Factor, one of the sponsors, gave us a birthday present: and small box with make-up and free make up sessions with a pro.

The best cake EVER 

Only with this would be perfect, but they had more surprises for us… Then, we were invited to move to Yuzhen Park and there was the second part of the party. When we arrived there was a surprise waiting for us… a swing party! There was Lilly of the West, a Bulgarian bluegrass and country music band, which played a lot of songs from their new album while three professional pairings of dancers. Really amazing!

So, we expend the rest of the evening listening great music, drinking, and partying with all the people. I met a lot of interesting people, and the grass in the park was perfect for seat and talk with them. I didn’t dance, because sometimes I am a bit shy (ehem), but a lot of people started to dance and was very funny.

Pretty people in the park 

Binar.bg it’s not only an online radio. There you can find a lot of news about culture, science, society and much more. They have a lot of programs about different topics (only in Bulgarian, I’m afraid) and, of course, you can listen a lot of kinds of music. And all of this in Internet, so you can play videos, see pictures and more..

I really enjoyed this birthday party. Not only for the cake, of course. The people were very friendly, the music was really great and the evening in the park, surrounded of dogs and kids was simply perfect. For my next birthday I want a party like this one!

More info | Binar.bg