Three-fourths of Tibetans now have access to TV and radio services, thanks to the rapid development of the services in the vast and yet sparsely-populated region.

The Tibet People's Broadcasting Station was founded in 1959 and began to offer services to the whole region the following year.

The Tibet TV Station, which was set up at the latest date in China, was founded in 1985 and could only cover the Lhasa area then.

The whole region currently has two broadcasting stations at the regional level, 36 medium- and short-wave transmission stations and relay stations, three cable TV stations and wireless TV stations at the regional level, 470 TV transmission stations and TV relay stations.

The Tibet People's Broadcasting Station operates in the Tibetan and Han languages.

The Tibet Autonomous Region has only 2.62 million inhabitants, 80 percent of whom are farmers and herdsmen. The region's TV and radio coverage has increased at an average annual rate of four percentages points since 1995. The growth rate amounted to 9.7 percentage points and 13.1 percentage points, respectively, last year.

Tibet will invest heavily in making TV and radio services accessible to every village before 2010.

(People's Daily 05/10/2001)