The National Council for Radio and Television (NCRT) will elect a new director general for the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR), announced the council last Thursday.

NCRT acting chairman Alexander Tomov said that the election will be made on April 26, immediately after the expiry of the deadline for appealing against decision of the Supreme Administrative Court, which ruled that the election of Ivan Borislavov as BNR director general contravened the law.

The election comes as part of the BNR's anti-crisis programme, which the NCRT will approve, also by April 26. The programme will include the criteria for the new director general.

BNR staff members who disagreed with the appointment of Borislavov have been protesting since February. As a result, several prominent journalists were taken off the air and dismissed.

Last week, the station held competitions to fill a number of positions that were freed during the journalists' protests. New journalists are now on the air taking part in some of the station's most popular programmes, such as those in the morning and the noon blocks. The reporters covering the political beat have all been replaced.

In the meantime, a poll Alpha Research agency conducted from March 19-22, at the request of Kapital weekly, showed that the radio had lost 80 per cent of its listeners in the age group up to 40 years, 70 per cent of students, and 62 per cent of private entrepreneurs.

This poll also revealed that only five per cent of the respondents rated NCRT's management as better; 16 per cent said it was worse; 58 per cent just changed the station.

Also, 61 per cent thought that the journalists' protests were just and purely professionally motivated, while 26 per cent found the them to be politically based.