Radio and television in the USSR

1. In the modern world, radio and television play an impor­tant role as a means of information, and as a means of people's political and cultural education. 2. The Central Radio Broad­casting Station has seven channels for the Soviet Union which operate for a total of 140 hours a day. 3. The voice of Soviet radio is heard all over the world. 4. Programmes to other coun­tries are conducted in many languages and total more than 200 hours a day. 5 Modern means of radio engineering cover the greater part of the world with long, medium and ultra-short radio waves. 6. Nevertheless, the technical means are being perfected 7. The number of radio stations in our country is growing constantly. 8. The number of receivers will be greatly increased. 9. The considerable growth of radio receivers produc­tion is influenced by the improvement of living standards of the people¹. 10. The quality of radio receivers has become much better. 11. Valve radio sets were followed by the transistor radio sets. 12. In connection with the growth of radio broadcasting and with the tasks of perfecting its quality, it is planned to build for Moscow's Central Radio Broadcasting Station another technological studio unit with 56 broadcasting studios. 13. It will be equipped with the most modern transistor devices. 14. In 1956 we had seventeen telecentres which served 5.5 million people. 15. At that time there were only 1.3 million tele­vision receivers; today the number of TV sets has greatly increased. 16. This has become possible primarily due to the development of Central (Moscow) Telecasting, which sends its programmes to a considerable part of our country. 17. Television programmes from Moscow are called Central not only because they come from the capital, but also because they reach many towns by means of a wide network of radio relay and cable lines, and the "Orbita" system. 18. The Moscow Television Centre is in Ostankino. 19. The 533-meter high Ostankino tele­vision tower, which has four transmitting aerials, can be seen from any part of Moscow. 20. The ferro-concrete² part of the tower houses all the technological and auxiliary services³. 21. The first section of this world’s biggest television centre began operations in November 1967. 22. The object of Soviet specialists' particular attention is colour television. 23. Colour programmes were started in our country in October 1967, using a joint Soviet-French system. 24. In the USSR much has been done for the development of radio broadcasting and television, nevertheless much more will be done in the nearest future. 25. Due to the application of powerful outer-space relays pro­grammes will be directly televised to large territories.