A: This week, we continue to receive many congratulations on our 68^th anniversary last week. Ratan Kumar Paul and Usha Hazarika of India and Ashik Eqbal Tokon of Bangladesh wished VOV a very happy anniversary.

Some of VOVworld's staff prior to a singing performance to celebrate VOV's 68th anniversary, September 7, 2013

B: Thank you very much, dear listeners, for your continued support and interest in our program. I’m so glad to read an encouraging letter from Dick King of England. He wrote: “I thought I would drop you a brief note to tell you that despite what major broadcasters and governments tell you there are still people like me that regularly listen to shortwave broadcasts. It’s a very good way of getting a different perspective on world news and events other than the normal press available in English.”

B: He continued: “Thank you for your help and interest – keep on broadcasting on the shortwave and don’t give in to the pressures to move to other methods when there is an audience on shortwave. I have tuned in regularly since I was 12 years old and can assure you your signal is being listened to around the world/”

A: Thank you Dick for your inspiring words. We surely will continue to use shortwave broadcasting to inform people around the world about Vietnam. In addition to serving shortwave hobbyists, we have also created a website where our audience can read the text, hear the audio, and watch the videos.

VOVworld frontpage

B: Many thanks for sending us a beautiful postcard of London’s Tower Bridge at sunset. It looks imposing and ancient. We’re also interested in the card celebrating the first 100 years of the Radio Society of Great Britain 1913-2013. From Finland, Arto Toyssy reported listening to VOV at 9730 khz on September 1. He used a Philips BX594A and caught a fair signal with a SINPO rating of 44323.

A: Arto said the overall program was good. The music later in the program was melancholy but it made his mind relaxed and peaceful. In our Weekly Music segment, we introduce different types of Vietnamese music including folk songs of different regions, modern pop ballads, and revolutionary songs. On September 1, we had some songs about the autumn, which is associated with falling leaves, sighing breezes, and the emotions of sadness and nostalgia. Songs about the autumn often have melancholy melodies.

B: Here I have a letter from Yoshihiro Kusanagi of Japan. He said VOV’s signal on 12020 khz is always strong and stable. He listened to the program on August 31 and was especially interested in Vietnamese education. He wrote: “Do Vietnamese students usually use Facebook? The Japanese educational system is poor in practice. For example, speaking and hearing English, communication skills, and IT technology.”

A: English has become a major foreign language used in Vietnam’s economic sector and in relations with other countries in Southeast Asia and East Asia because none of these countries speak each others' language.

B: In fact, the general education in Vietnam fails to equip students with sufficient English skills, particularly pronunciation and speaking skills. Students come out of school with pretty good grammar knowledge, but speaking skill is poor because they lack practice. Vietnam is undertaking a thorough and fundamental reform of the educational sector, including a goal that by 2020 all students will leave school proficient in the English language.

Several Vietnamese children study English with native-English speakers

A: Because the initiative requires that English-language teachers pass a test showing they are proficient, it will be a challenge for 80,000 English language teachers in Vietnam’s state schools.  

B: Many education experts and teachers say it’s an ambitious plan, but we hope it will improve the English competency of Vietnamese graduates. We have some brief information regarding your question about students using Facebook. The number of Facebook users in Vietnam has grown rapidly year after year to encompass more than 10% of the population, mainly in urban areas. This means Facebook may have already overtaken other social networks to become the most popular in Vietnam.

A: WeAreSocial, a Singapore-based digital PR organization, released a report last year that said Vietnam’s social, digital, and mobile landscape is evolving at an astonishing rate, with internet users in the country increasing 5% since the end of 2011.

B: Out of a population of over 90 million, Vietnam has almost 31 million internet users, a penetration of 34%; 95% of Vietnamese people between 15 and 24 years of age have access to the Internet; and 95% of Vietnam’s Internet users visit online news sites.

A: The report said 28% of Vietnamese netizens have a Facebook account and a new user from Vietnam joins Facebook every 3 seconds. So those are a few statistics on Vietnamese internet users. We hope Mr. Yoshihiro and our other listeners found the numbers interesting. 

B: In India, Ratan Kumar Paul wants to know about popular Vietnamese TV channels. How many state and private TV channels are there in Vietnam? The most popular TV channel in Vietnam is VTV1, a channel of the state-run VTV, which broadcasts news, entertainment, and films. VTV has branches in almost every city and province, special channels for science and technology, entertainment, education, sports, and a channel of programming in foreign languages and Vietnamese ethnic minority languages. VTV has an affiliate VTC – Vietnam cable television which has many additional channels.

VOV-TV on traffic is a very popular channel in Vietnam

A: Other state TV channels include VOV-TV of the Voice of Vietnam Radio, VNA of the Vietnam News Agency, ANTV of the Ministry of Public Security, and QPVN of the Ministry of Defense. Private channels include Yan-TV for music, and Yeah1 TV for children and young people.  

B: That was a brief introduction to television stations in Vietnam. Before we go, I would like to acknowledge letters from Takao Mizuike of Japan, Peter Ng of Malaysia, Andrei Skorodumov of Russia, Joy Mondal of India, Alf Persson of Sweden, Rajek Akter of Bangladesh, and Eddy Setiawan of Indonesia.  

A: Thank you all for spending time with VOV and of writing to us. We’ll verify your reports soon. Before we go, we would like to inform you that due to technical upgrading, we will temporarily suspend our broadcasts on the frequencies of 12020khz and 9840 khz between 7am and 6pm from October 2nd to October 12th, 2013. During this period, our programs will redirected to the frequency of 7220khz at 3:30 to 4:30, 18:30 to 19:00, 20:30 to 21:00, and 23:00 to 23:30. We are sorry for this inconvenience. Everything will get back to normal on October 13th, 2013.

We welcome your feedback at: English section, Overseas Service, Radio Voice of Vietnam, 45 Ba Trieu Street, Hanoi, Vietnam. Or you can email us at: englishsection@vov.org.vn. You’re invited to visit us online at www.vovworld.vn, where you can hear both live and recorded programs. Good bye from Hanoi.