Self-help soap triumphs in Albania's new ratings battle

With story lines involving blood feuds, corruption and the mafia, the soap opera Rruga Me Pisha ( Pine Street) is winning audience figures British radio bosses would die for. In the northern regions, 90 per cent of the population are regular listeners and across the Balkan nation as a whole, 65 per cent are tuning in loyally to Radio Tirana, a national survey has found.

With story lines involving blood feuds, corruption and the mafia, the soap opera Rruga Me Pisha ( Pine Street) is winning audience figures British radio bosses would die for. In the northern regions, 90 per cent of the population are regular listeners and across the Balkan nation as a whole, 65 per cent are tuning in loyally to Radio Tirana, a national survey has found.

During the country's communist past, Radio Tirana served its puppet-masters in Peking by broadcasting Maoist propaganda across Europe. Now, however, the helping foreign hand is provided by none other than the BBC.

For the three million people of Albania, the inhabitants of Pine Street have become heroes. The trials and tribulations of Andrea, a businessman, his wife, Dokina, and their neighbours in a fictional suburb of the capital Tirana have caught the public imagination.

Even Edi Rama, the minister of culture, has sent best wishes for the series' future. "A very considerable number of Albanians follow it regularly because it reflects the problems we Albanians face every day with all the joys and sorrows and absurdities of life in this country. I hope it continues for a long time."

The thrice-weekly soap (with an omnibus edition at the weekend) began last December and is a joint production between the BBC World Service Trust (a charitable offshoot of the World Service) and Radio Tirana, Albania's national station.

With £380,000 financial backing from the Department for International Development and the European Union, the aim was "to promote tolerance and understanding in Albania".

Danny Renton, the World Service Trust's project manager in Tirana, said: "The soap opera reflects the reality of Albania - water and power shortages, officials taking bribes, the mafia man next door or just how to get to sleep when a pack of wild dogs are howling outside. And it's a pretty violent society.

"We make it funny and constructive and it helps people to understand. Many people in Albania feel negatively about their country, but the soap opera shows there are good things too."

Listening figures in Albania lack the accuracy of carefully monitored statistics in the UK. But a national survey by the University of Tirana social work department produced the extraordinarily high figures which have so delighted producers.

More than 70 per cent of listeners said they discussed the issues raised after broadcasts and 97 per cent of listeners rated the programme as either good or very good.

Pine Street joins other soaps made by the BBC World Service or World Service Trust which together reach millions. While Radio 4's Archers gets four million listeners, Westway on the English service of the World Service reaches 30 million. A soap, New Home New Life, broadcast in the Afghanistan and Pakistan region, reaches 35 million and another series, Urunana, is widely popular in Africa.

The Department for International Development currently supports three radio soaps, in South Africa, Albania and Russia. "We look for opportunities where the mass media can spread an important message like social or health work. Radio is a very powerful way of reaching a wide audience," a spokesman said.