BNR at 90 - a story of pride and no prejudice!

On 25 January 1935, Tsar Boris III signed the decree establishing the Bulgarian National Radio. The document, which officially marked the beginning of "Radio Sofia", as the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) was then called, made radio broadcasting in Bulgaria state property. In June of that year, the poet and artist Panayot Todorov Hristov, better known by his pen name Sirak Skitnik, was appointed as the first director of public radio. Three musical ensembles were formed, including the forerunners of the Folk Music Orchestra and the BNR Big Band. In February 1936, our media opened a door to the world through its Foreign Broadcasts, now known as the Radio Bulgaria programme.

BNR Director General Milen Mitev

"Happy anniversary to all our colleagues and listeners, and now also to the readers and viewers of Bulgarian National Radio! - With these words, BNR Director General Milen Mitev greeted us and our listeners in a special interview for Radio Bulgaria. - Our biggest challenge as a media outlet with such a long history is to learn from the past, to modernise and to stand shoulder to shoulder with our newer competitors. It's all about how we stand out and what unique and valuable content we can offer our audience so that they choose us," says Mitev, who is convinced that as a public broadcaster, BNR should be present everywhere, on all platforms."

"We must reach out to our audience, not wait for them to come to us. We need to offer our services in the way that is easiest and most accessible for the audience, because that is the only way to fully fulfil our public mission. I think that Radio Bulgaria is a great example in this respect, because it started as a radio station (on short and medium waves - ed.) and now exists almost exclusively on the Internet.

Through new technological expressions, it reaches an even wider audience through text, sound and image," says Milen Mitev. This feature of the present - being shaped by the digital age - led to the creation of the Digital Programmes Directorate at BNR in 2022. Its director is the journalist and writer Ivo Todorov. Its director is the journalist and writer Ivo Todorov.

Ivo Todorov

Our directorate is streaming events and more, so users can see what's happening in real time, which is not strictly radio content. The celebration isn't limited to 25 January - it's all year round. 2025 is also exciting for us because we are launching three new websites and apps. The apps are BNR-NEWS (for news), BINAR - a platform for listening to audio-visual content and the third is Kids' BNR. These apps will be freely available".

"Any media content has a much longer lifespan in the digital environment," stresses Ivo Todorov, adding that BNR has a wealth of information available to its users at www.bnr.bg. At its core is the radio’s first website, created for Radio Bulgaria and maintained by a team led by Lyubomir Lazarov – who, for a long time, presented content created by reporters, editors, and translators of foreign language broadcasts for abroad, as well as in Bulgarian – for our compatriots around the world.

In addition to on-air programmes, text and audio publications, in the last two years the public broadcaster has started to produce audio podcasts and several video series, which are attracting great interest.

The number of viewers will soon reach 8 million, Todorov says with satisfaction. The personalisation of the content on the platforms will not undermine the credibility of the information that BNR will offer in the future, Ivo Todorov is confident:

"For another year, the Reuters Institute has recognised Bulgarian National Radio as the institution with the greatest trust in the credibility of the news and information content we produce. This is a responsibility we must continue to uphold. I think we are doing well.

"The easiest way to fight fake news is to provide more and easily accessible information across all platforms. That's why we strive to be present everywhere, and since last year, BNR's 'The News' has even been uploaded to the controversial platform TikTok," recalls Media Director-General Milen Mitev.

"Radio Bulgaria is the BNR programme that connects public media with the world. It is the media that 'translates' the daily life of Bulgarians for the attention of foreign-language audiences worldwide through its programmes in ten foreign languages (English, Russian, French, German, Spanish, Greek, Turkish, Serbian, Albanian, Romanian). At the same time, it is the media that tells the story of the lives of Bulgarians abroad to audiences in the country and around the world.

"This is a very great asset in the portfolio of Bulgarian National Radio. In recent months, there has been a spike in the consumption of Radio Bulgaria content by citizens of Ukraine who have moved to Western Europe. The reason is that BNR provides reliable information about the conflict in Ukraine. And that is very good, because it is a recognition of the work of all the journalists at BNR. And even though the Bulgarian National Radio is not a commercial medium, it brings us traffic and that should not be underestimated".

"What is perhaps lacking at the moment is a state strategy on how best to use the resources of Radio Bulgaria. Because through Radio Bulgaria, Bulgaria can speak to the whole world, and especially to all our neighbours, with whom, unfortunately, relations are often not as smooth as we would like them to be - points out Milen Mitev.

The editor-in-chief of Radio Bulgaria, Krassimir Martinov, who began his professional career right after graduating from this very BNR programme, is also celebrating the 90th anniversary of the radio with gratitude to his colleagues.

"We've been through all kinds of turbulence, including the absurd decision of the management in 2017 to cut the programme and leave it as a radio without a voice, questioning its very existence. During these years and since, the Radio Bulgaria team has shown resilience and a certain doggedness, and so we continue the mission of the original creators of this programme. In a time of declining values, I believe that Radio Bulgaria will continue to maintain its high level of professionalism and we will continue to generate and implement new ideas".

"In 2021, our programme resumed its broadcasts in nine foreign languages, online every day under the name "Bulgaria Today". In the same year we received the Sirak Skitnik Award for our contribution to radio journalism. In 2022 we also relaunched our daily radio programme Bulgaria Today in Bulgarian and added another language to our crown by launching a Romanian section. We started the project "Radio Bulgaria visits Bulgarians in..." and toured Albania, Serbia, Greece, Portugal, Slovakia, Turkey and Italy. With its original ideas, Radio Bulgaria took part in the national programme to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the death of the Apostle of Freedom Vasil Levski. We produced a series of more than 100 publications introducing the mission of Levski to foreign readers and listeners, which can be found on our website today. We resumed, after a 40-year hiatus, the recording of musical works that are part of the song heritage of the Bulgarian Turks - we recorded 13 such pieces with contemporary performers (2022-23). Last but not least, we made live broadcasts from the Kardzhali and Ludogorie regions and were the voice of Bulgarians around the world during all six early parliamentary elections in Bulgaria.

The Jubilee Year 2025 for Radio Bulgaria began with faith and new cooperation. The daily "Church Calendar" is now part of our programme, and at the end of January we will start broadcasting a new podcast for the Bulgarian Orthodox communities abroad - "Bridge of Faith"."

Bulgarian Orthodox Church and BNR join forces to provide spiritual support to compatriots abroad

Today, Krassimir Martinov expresses his gratitude, first of all, to the people who, day after day, bring the idea of the Radio Bulgaria programme to life and, of course, to the management of public media for standing behind us and recognising the importance of this programme and the immense added value it brings to Bulgarian National Radio.

"This is one of my hopes for the future - that the state, in addition to the management of Radio Bulgaria, will be visionary and make a much more rational use of Radio Bulgaria. We are here and we will continue! Happy holidays to all our colleagues and to all our listeners and supporters!"

" I wish myself and all my colleagues that we do not lose this flame in us that makes us continue to work in BNR! - said Milen Mitev, Director General of BNR. - Because, at the risk of sounding clichéd, working in public service media is indeed a mission. It's not just a job, it's a responsibility to the whole of society, and I think it brings immense satisfaction. It's no secret that salaries in public media here are far from impressive, but many motivated professionals continue to work here. Obviously, it is not the salary that attracts them, but the opportunity to do something significant, because the media gives us the opportunity to try to change the world for the better, as far as we have the power to do so. My main wish is that we do not lose the desire to change the world for the better. Everything else can be sorted out more or less".

Happy Holidays, Bulgarian National Radio!

Read more about the events marking the 90th anniversary of Bulgarian National Radio here: