Media

　　Press. Tibet's first newspaper, the lithographed Vernacu-lar Tibetan News began publication in Lhasa in 1907. More recently, the Tibet Daily began publication in April 1956 to be followed by the Tibet Science and Technology News, Lhasa Evening News, Tibet Youth Daily Xigaze News, Tibet Radio and Television Guide and Tibet Legal System News. Currently, 15 newspapers are officially published, along with 36 periodicals, notably Tibetan Literature and Tibetan Lit-erature and Arts. Important newspapers and periodicals are published in both Tibetan and Chinese editions. The folio format Tibet Daily has a daily press run of 20,000 in the Ti-betan edition and 30,000 in the Chinese edition.
　　The Tibet branch of the Xinhua News Agency, China's national news service, is in Lhasa. Organizations for mem-bers of the press include the Tibet Autonomous Region Jour-nalists Association and the Tibet Autonomous Region Jour-nalism Society.
　　Publishing. In the old days, before the advent ofmod-ern publishing, books in Tibet were printed from woodblocks. Many famous monasteries had facilities for cut-ting woodblocks and printing sutras and other works on medicine, almanacs and calendrical study and other subjects. The Tibetan People's publishing House was founded in the early 1970s. It has published 89.771 copies of books in 6,589 varieties, 61.6 percent of which are in Tibetan.
　　Guided by its policy of publishing mainly in Tibetan and concentrating on popular works, the Tibetan People's Publishing Rouse has published a batch of popular science reading materials in Tibetan. It has paid particular attention to preparing and publishing a number of famous older works and classics including Buddhist sutras, works on Tibetan medicine and Tibetan calendars, histories, biographies, local folk literature, works on folk arts and historical and cultural records, the latter including A Catalogue to the Gangvur Blue Annals, Red Annals, New Red Annals, Lineage of the Sagva Order and Historv of the Lang Clan. It has published the biography ofKing Gesar in close on 30 Tibetan-language editions. Its Complete Four- Volume Medical Code Wall Chart Series earned the publisher a First Chinese Book Award prize given in 1986.
　　The Tibet Tibetan-Language Ancient Books Publishing Rouse was set up in the late 1980s specifically to edit old Tibetan-language handwritten and wood-block printed books, checking them against authoritative texts in prepara-tion for publication. This publisher has already compiled a large-scale collection of ancient Tibetan-language texts en-titled Snowland Librarv, with more than 20,000 copies of over 40 titles already issued.
　　Radio and Television. The Tibet Wired Radio Station was founded in 1953. On January 1, 1959, it officially began broadcasting in Tibetan and Chinese under the name "Tibetan People's Radio." Today, nearly 1,475 ground satellite receiv-ing stations and 240 television relay stations and translator stations throughout the region make up the beginnings of a radio and television network combining satellite transmis-sions, radio transmissions and wired broadcasts which will blanket all of Tibet.
　　There are currently two radio stations in the region Tibetan People's Radio and Shannan People's Radio. The stations have determined to broadcast primarily in Tibetan and to simultaneously develop domestically and internation-ally directed broadcasts. The Tibetan People's Radio broad-casts in 10 frequency bands, six broadcasting in Tibetan. There is a total of 24 hours and 15 minutes a day on all fre-quencies. The 45-minute "Broadcast for Tibetan Compatriots Outside of China," presented twice daily, consists of three segments: news, features, and literature and arts. Tibet also has two television stations, the Tibet TV Sta-tion and the Lhasa Station. The Tibet TV Station broadcasts 16 hours of programming a day on three channels. Its selfproduced news programmers can be transmitted outside of China by satellite.