VOA News Available on Mobile Devices in Guinea

Voice of America has launched a new mobile service that makes daily news summaries available to cell phone users in Guinea.

The new service is made possible by a partnership with AudioNow, a mobile radio distribution provider, and is hosted on the Cellcom network in Guinea.

Any phone user can access the VOA French language news bulletins by calling a single national number. Cellcom customers can dial a short special access code, which is available at reduced rates.

VOA Africa Division Director Gwen Dillard says the new service “provides our listeners in Guinea with a simple and easy way to get news that is important to them, no matter where they are. VOA’s strategy is to use the right platform in the right place, and in Africa people are increasingly using mobile phones, so putting our news on those devices makes sense.”

Users in Guinea can dial 65100993 to hear the daily VOA news bulletins through AudioNow’s patent-pending “single-stream” technology. Cellcom subscribers in Guinea who pay a small weekly fee can access the VOA French service by calling the short code 503.

VOA’s news, feature and music programs are broadcast throughout Africa on television, shortwave, medium wave and FM. The programs are also available on mobile, streamed on the internet and distributed “direct to home” by satellite and affiliate stations across the continent. VOA is also increasingly offering its radio and television programs via smart-phone apps and now on any mobile device on AudioNow.

For more on VOA in English or any of the other languages in which we broadcast, visit www.voanews.com. To see this Press Release online, visit www.insidevoa.com.

Media inquiries can be made to Kyle King in Washington at [email protected].