Moscow to get English radio station

Moscow's English-speaking residents and language learners will have something new to listen to starting on November 12. The city is launching a brand new radio station in English to cater to expats, tourists and local residents. The new station, to be called Moscow FM, is being set up by Moscow's city hall. It is part of an ongoing initiative to make the city easier to live in for non-Russians. The radio channel follows hot on the heels of street signs in English, which emerged for the first time several months ago. Moscow's Deputy Mayor Andrei Sharonov told the "Moscow Times" newspaper that the next stage of the city's project would be to provide tuition to the city's police officers to study English. Moscow FM will have a strong focus on news – both national and international. The "Moscow Times" reported that: "The news content will be produced by the state-funded English language TV channel Russia Today and will make up 20-30 per cent of the airtime." A spokesman for the new station promised it would be, "a fundamentally new urban radio". It is sure to be a hit with tens of thousands of Moscow's foreign residents as well as the five million tourists who pass through Russia's capital every year. It should also prove popular with Russians learning English in Moscow. Language student Oksana Ivashin said she would be tuning in regularly to the station, "for a Russian perspective on English news".