"Born in 1945" is a special podcast series airing on VOV1, VOV2, VOV Traffic and VOV's digital platforms from August 18 to September 7, 2025.

After the August Revolution, on his way from Tan Trao, Tuyen Quang, to Hanoi, President Ho Chi Minh ordered the urgent creation of a national radio station.

On August 22, 1945, Xuan Thuy, a senior leader, convened a meeting at 4 Đinh Le Street in Hanoi, to convey the President’s directive. Propaganda officer Tran Lam was assigned to establish the station.

Two weeks later, on September 5, at the same address and under Lam’s chairmanship, the station was officially named the Voice of Vietnam (VOV).

Journalist Tran Duc Nuoi, former Head of VOV’s Editorial Secretariat, recalled, "The meeting was short, but its impact remains to this day. The station began with no one trained in broadcasting. President Ho Chi Minh - a great journalist and founder of Vietnam’s revolutionary press - was also the founder of the national radio station."

In just ten days, Tran Lam gathered about 20 educated people to form the first editorial team. At 128C Dai La, home of the Bạch Mai radio station, engineers converted old Morse code generators into radio broadcast equipment, while a 30-square-meter room at 4 Pham Ngu Lao was turned into a studio.

Mr. Nuoi said that at that time, Mr. Le Quang Lan ran the studio, using blankets for soundproofing. With just one large, shaky microphone, he told Tran Lam that the station couldn’t broadcast on the 5th or 6th, but would start on the 7th, Nuoi added.

Tran Lam worked with announcers Nguyen Van Nhat and Duong Thi Ngan to deliver the story with strength, clarity, and pride, showing the world that Vietnam is a sovereign nation. Ngan read first, Nhat followed, both with clear, high voices.

After much debate about the music for the signature tune - between The Marching Song and Guerrilla -Smashing Facism by composer Nguyen Dinh Thi was chosen.

At exactly 11:30 a.m. on September 7, 1945, the Voice of Vietnam aired its first broadcast, announcing to the world a national radio station - the voice of a free and independent Vietnam. That opening announcement carried special meaning as it was the first time the Vietnamese people had had a mass media outlet to speak for their just cause, according to late journalist Tran Lam, VOV’s first Editor-in-Chief.

"We had to emphasize: This is the Voice of Vietnam. For years under colonial rule we had no voice, so now it had to be clear and strong: This… this is the Voice of Vietnam," he said.

Since that day, the song Smashing Facism has been familiar to the Vietnamese people. It recalls the moment of National Day as we mark 80 years of the Voice of Vietnam this year, said former VOV President Nguyen The Ky.

President Ho Chi Minh clearly understood the vital role of the press, he said, adding that, "On August 22, before returning to Hanoi, he told Minister of Home Affairs Vo Nguyen Giap and Minister of Information and Communications Tran Huy Lieu that a national radio station was needed to bring the voice of an independent Vietnam to the people and the world ahead of National Day."

This reflected his sharp political and cultural vision, Mr. Ky said. “Through the Voice of Vietnam’s broadcast, the Declaration of Independence reached an even wider audience and that very afternoon, foreign news agencies reported the event, citing broadcasts from the station.”

VOV is proud to be the first media outlet founded by President Ho Chi Minh after the August Revolution. Throughout nearly a century of revolutionary journalism in Vietnam, the Voice of Vietnam has spent 80 years accompanying the nation’s development.