BBC Asian Network

BBC Asian Network. . Getting Together , In 1968 BBC Radio Leicester provided a regular programme called Getting Together for "people who had come to make their home in Leicester". Growth in the local Asian population soon saws the station launch Milan, a programme which was presented by Riaz Sheikh and Harjinder Rura. In late 1972 Uganda expelled its Asian population. Almost 8,000 Ugandan Asians came to Leicester, resulting in Milan being extended to 45 minutes a week in 1973. The program team also changed, with new regular presenters Kartar Singh Sand Bhupinder Alwal and Yusuf Chaudhary, representing the diverse Asian communities in the city., Growing Together , In 1976, the station created "Six-Fifteen", the first daily Asian radio show in Britain. Presented by Don Kotak and Mira Trivedi, who were soon joined by Vijay Sharma and Mike Allbut, this show was a positive response to racial tension in the city. Within months the programme, later renamed "The Six O'Clock Show", regularly reached 67% of the South Asian community in the city, helping to build social cohesion. In 1989 the BBC launched an regional Asian Network on the medium wave transmitters of BBC Radio Leicester and BBC WM Birmingham. Initially the BBC provided programmes in the evenings, but this expanded into a full-time service in 1996 when other UK stations serving large Asian communities also began relaying programs., Networking Together , The Asian Network became one of the BBC's new national digital stations in 2002. Subsequently, the station physically moved from its Leicester studios to new ones in Birmingham and London BBC Radio Leicester still retains a weekly Asian programme. Many of the Asian Network's former staff and presenters have worked in other areas of the BBC, and in the commercial radio sector. The development of Asian programming in Leicester is testimony to how to successfully embrace diverse ethnic communities across a city.