By SOMAN BABY

THE Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA) yesterday appointed the Strategic Publicity and Advertising Company (SPAC), which operates the Asian radio channel Voice FM 104.2, as its strategic media partner.

LMRA chief executive Ali Radhi signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Voice FM chairman P Unnikrishnan.

Mr Radhi thanked Voice FM for its support to LMRA’s various reforms projects and praised the channel’s initiative in getting its message across to expatriate Asian workers.

Last year, the radio station distributed 104 return air tickets for people, who left the country under the amnesty. The process was supported by Qatar Airways and LMRA.

Voice FM 104.2 Radio is the only FM channel operating from Bahrain in multilingual format comprising the languages spoken by major expatriate groups from the Indian Subcontinent.

“The radio station is all set to win over one million listeners in Bahrain and the nearby Gulf states,” said Mr Unnikrishnan.

“The channel has become as much a part of their identity as their language and culture and we now call it as an expression of a people with positive sound.

“Our wide reach and the goodwill we have already generated enable us to reach a very large segment of the expatriate population as also considerable sections of the local people.” The radio station runs 16 hours of live programmes from 7am to 11pm.