A language audience could exceed a state

Radio could connect listeners through familiar speech and music even when political borders divided the places involved. Historian Isabel Huacuja Alonso’s account of Hindi-Urdu broadcasting from the 1930s to the 1980s argues that transnational listening continued after Partition and could exceed governments’ nation-building agendas. This is wider regional context, not a Punjabi-only audience survey. For Punjabi broadcasting, particular records are needed to distinguish an intended audience from a signal’s reach and from documented listening. Two later examples show why these distinctions matter.[1]

A programme could cross the border twice

A 2014 CRTC decision records Sher-E-Punjab operating from Richmond, British Columbia, and producing programmes transmitted through KRPI 1550 AM in Ferndale, Washington. The transmission was received in Canada. Production location, transmitter location and audience location therefore did not coincide. The Commission imposed an order concerning the Canadian undertaking and its arrangements with the American licensee. This dated regulatory record demonstrates an actual organisational route across a border; the station’s name alone would not reveal it.[2]

In 2016, the CRTC approved a new Vancouver AM licence for Sher-E-Punjab. Its decision described a proposed news/talk service aimed particularly at Punjabi and Hindi communities, within a multilingual operation. Approval records permission and commitments, rather than proving that every later programme or promised hour was delivered.[3]

Internet distribution produced another listening map

All India Radio’s app rankings supply a different kind of cross-border evidence. A Press Information Bureau release of 9 November 2021, based on 12 October–6 November data, listed AIR Punjabi among streams popular in Pakistan. Its stream-specific country table also included the United Kingdom, United States, Australia and Canada. Here the distribution channel was NewsOnAir streaming rather than a neighbouring terrestrial transmitter. These broadcaster-reported rankings identify locations associated with app use; they do not identify every listener’s language, citizenship or reason for listening, and provide no population-wide audience total. Cross-border connection was possible through several infrastructures, whose evidence should remain distinguishable.[4]

Sources & notes

Source records include access dates and, where known, limits on what was examined. Checks used AI assistance; independent human or specialist review has not been completed.

  1. Eve Glasberg; interview with Isabel Huacuja Alonso; Columbia News. How Radio Crossed Borders in the Indian Subcontinent ↗university interview with a scholar · Source date: 2023-03-01 · Locator: Opening account of Radio for the Millions and its Hindi-Urdu scope, 1930s–1980s and post-1947 argument (web lines 22–24). Accessed 2026-11-02.Actual complete interview body inspected. Used as explicitly Hindi-Urdu regional context. Book, dissertation and overlapping summaries of the same research are conservatively one reservation; book and dissertation bodies were not claimed read. No Punjabi audience totals or current influence claims.Return to A language audience could exceed a state, paragraph 1 ↑
  2. Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2014-591 and Broadcasting Order CRTC 2014-592: Sher-E-Punjab – Issuance of mandatory order ↗dated primary regulatory decision · Source date: 2014-11-13 · Locator: Introduction paragraphs 1–4; analysis paragraph 5; appendix order (especially paragraph 3 identifying Richmond production and KRPI transmission). Accessed 2026-11-02.Actual complete relevant decision and order read in the web reader. Direct local fetch returned 403; no additional content was inferred. The account is dated and attributed; it is not current legal advice or a claim about current operating status. Overlapping recapitulation in the 2016 decision is conservatively reserved with this case.Return to A programme could cross the border twice, paragraph 1 ↑
  3. Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2016-464: Licensing of new radio stations to serve Surrey and Vancouver, and addition of a transmitter in Surrey ↗dated primary regulatory decision · Source date: 2016-11-28 · Locator: Paragraphs 19–23, conclusion paragraph 33 and Appendix 1; relevant background paragraphs 5–10 checked. Accessed 2026-11-02.Actual specified full decision sections and licence appendix read. Proposed audience and news/talk commitments remain distinct from later delivery. The 2014/2016 Sher-E-Punjab case is additionally pooled conservatively in the ignored budget audit, although these are distinct dated decisions. No current licence validity is implied.Return to A programme could cross the border twice, paragraph 2 ↑
  4. Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting; official Prasar Bharati PDF copy. NewsOnAir Radio Live-stream Global Rankings: Pakistan tunes into NewsOnAir, release 1770229 ↗dated broadcaster-reported usage release · Source date: 2021-11-09 · Locator: Actual release header and data-period statement, PDF p. 1; country/stream table pp. 3–4; AIR Punjabi stream-wise country column p. 5. Accessed 2026-11-02.Actual six-page PDF body and relevant tables read; the AIR Punjabi country column on PDF p. 5 was additionally rendered and visually checked locally. The 2024 upload path is not the publication date. Rankings describe NewsOnAir data for 12 October–6 November 2021, not total radio audiences or current reception. No numerical listener count or identity inference is made.Return to Internet distribution produced another listening map, paragraph 1 ↑
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Record PH-JOU-0031 · English edition · human review not performed