BBG Watch Commentary

Victor GoonetillekeA longtime listener to Voice of America (VOA) radio broadcasts in Asia asked: “Is the USA bankrupt not only financially, but even with the skills of management?” [Emphasis added.]

This comment from Asia was received after cuts of shortwave radio transmissions for VOA, Radio Free Asia (RFA), and Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) were suddenly implemented on June 30, 2014 by the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB), a management arm of the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), without any meaningful prior warning given to audiences abroad in Asia, Middle East, and Belarus, including many countries with press censorship, poor Internet infrastructure and Internet censorship.

Victor Goonetilleke, Frequency Manager at PCJ Radio International, wrote to BBG Watch:

“People keep phoning me, asking me what has happened to the Voice of America (VOA) English radio broadcasts.

When I tell them the sad truth, there is silence, and then [they] say so now the sole representative of the Free World is the BBC while China is blasting its way every hour on the hour.

Is the USA bankrupt not only financially, but even with the skills of management?”

Earlier, Mr. Goonetilleke sent us this comment:

“If international broadcasting was meant to build public relations for the U.S. with the world, earn respect, make people understand the American way of life, its policies and interests — the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ (BBG) executives in charge of the Voice of America (VOA) have done everything wrong.

This was like pulling out of Saigon in 1973 and leaving behind people who had risked and then lost their lives for the United States. This is like breaking the pot after fetching water the whole day.

The BBG has let America down….the respect and faith we had in the U.S. has been shaken. This was like a coup with no regard at all for the listening audience.

The man who [at] his inauguration reached out to those people listening huddled round a radio in some forgotten corner of the world. His Administration has been let down by the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

 

Does President Obama even know what the BBG is doing?“

 

IBB executives and BBG member Matt Armstrong who is also the chair of the Special Committee on the Future of Shortwave Broadcasting are, according to sources, dismissing any criticism directed at them. They reportedly blame senior VOA managers for not informing their staff and their audiences about the termination of shortwave broadcasts on June 30.

 

 

ALSO READ: More evidence of delaying notice to Voice of America listeners about shortwave cuts, BBG Watch, July 2, 2014.

ALSO READ: Radio listeners, Vietnamese shortwave jammers surprised and confused by U.S. agency cuts, BBG Watch, July 2, 2014.

READ MORE: Broadcasting Board of Governors has let America and Obama down, BBG Watch, June 30, 2014.

READ MORE: Some world reactions to sudden VOA shortwave shutdown in Asia, BBG Watch, June 30, 2014.

READ MORE: Last Voice of America English shortwave program to Asia with hardly any prior notice, BBG Watch, June 30, 2014.

READ MORE: IBB ends long-term partnerships with rebroadcasters in two-sentence emails and no thank you, BBG Watch, June 29, 2014.

ALSO READ: PCJ Radio making fun of Voice of America and BBG executives on radio cuts to Asia and Middle East, BBG Watch, June 29, 2014.

ALSO READ: Bureaucrats gave listeners little time to learn about shortwave cuts by VOA, RFA, and RFE/RL, BBG Watch, June 28, 2014.

ALSO READ: Dropping radio and going all digital: VOA Asia Twitter not updated since May 3, BBG Watch, June 29, 2014.

###

 

The following information about cuts to VOA shortwave transmissions appears to have come from an agency spokesperson, but it does not appear on VOA or BBG websites:

VOA Azerbaijani 

  • Cuts: 30 minutes shortwave

  • Continuing Distribution: Satellite TV (HotBird) and satellite audio (TurkSat); multimedia web and mobile sites and social media

  • Shortwave is used by just 2% of adults weekly in Azerbaijan, and does not yield significant audiences for the service (0.4% weekly reach on radio in BBG’s most recent survey). By contrast, satellite dish ownership is widespread, at 56%, and 18% use the Internet weekly. The service has both satellite and online products, which are far more likely to reach audiences in Azerbaijan. VOA Bangla 

  • Cuts: 1 hour shortwave

  • Continuing Distribution: 1 hour medium-wave (AM); FM and TV affiliates; multimedia web and mobile sites; social media

  • Shortwave is not widely used in Bangladesh (just 2% weekly), and the majority of the service’s audience comes to its programming via FM and TV affiliate networks in the country. VOA English (in Asia) 

  • Cuts: 6.5 hours shortwave  (2 hours of programming that was repeated)

  • Continuing Distribution: Some medium-wave; multimedia web and mobile sites and social media

  • Outside of sub-Saharan Africa, English speakers are rarely users of shortwave radio. They are more likely to be educated and affluent, and to have access to a broad range of media. Years of BBG research questions on consumption of VOA English on shortwave have failed to find any significant audiences outside Africa, in large part because usage of shortwave radio in other regions is mostly very low. VOA Lao

  • Cuts: 30 minutes shortwave

  • Continuing Distribution: 30 minutes medium-wave; 7 affiliates in Thailand on Lao border, with reach into Laos; multimedia web and mobile sites; social media

  • Shortwave is very little-used in Laos — less than 1% of adults report listening to shortwave radio weekly. In BBG’s most recent research in Laos, no surveyed listeners reported using the shortwave band to access VOA content. A majority (66%) hear VOA on FM, through affiliate stations on the Thai border that carry VOA content (Laos is so small that border FM stations have decent penetration into the country). VOA Special/Learning English 

  • Cuts: 5.5 hours shortwave

  • Continuing Distribution: Learning English programs continue on shortwave on English to Africa. 30 minutes medium-wave; multimedia web and mobile sites, including special interactive teaching products; social media, including social English lessons

  • BBG audience research indicates strong interest in learning English, but very limited shortwave listenership to VOA Learning English, outside a few select markets. The service is working more closely with other VOA language services to create English learning products for distribution on more popular channels. And Learning English offers a variety of digital products that are increasingly popular, including a Skype call-in show, videos on YouTube, and a website featuring both audio and transcripts for online audiences to follow as they listen. VOA Uzbek 

  • Cuts: 30 minutes shortwave

  • Continuing Distribution: Satellite audio and TV (HotBird); FM and TV affiliates in neighboring countries; multimedia web and mobile sites (with circumvention tools deployed); social media

  • SW is not widely used in Uzbekistan (just 2% weekly), and does not yield significant audiences for the service (0.3% weekly). Adults in Uzbekistan are much more likely to own a satellite dish (13%) or use the Internet (12% weekly) than to use shortwave, so the service provides content on those platforms. Uzbekistan is an especially difficult market to penetrate with USIM content, but shortwave is not an effective platform for the country. RFE/RL Persian (Farda) 

  • Cuts: 1 simultaneous shortwave frequency for 6 broadcast hours

  • Continuing Distribution: Shortwave on multiple frequencies for all 24 broadcast hours remains on, in addition to 24 hours daily medium-wave; “Radio on TV” on VOA Persian stream; 24 hours daily satellite audio with slate plus 24-hour audio on 4 other satellites including Hotbird, the most popular satellite in Iran; multimedia website (with circumvention tools deployed); social media; mobile app with anticensorship proxy server capability built-in.

  • This is only a reduction to the number of simultaneous frequencies during some of the broadcast day. Shortwave radio, with 5% weekly use in 2012, is considerably less popular than other platforms on which audiences can access Farda content, such as medium-wave (10% weekly use), satellite television (26% own a dish, and 33% watch satellite television weekly) or the Internet (39% weekly use). RFA Lao 

  • Cuts: 2 hours shortwave

  • Continuing Distribution: 5 FM radio affiliates in Thailand provide cross-border coverage; multimedia web and mobile sites; social media

  • Shortwave is very little-used in Laos — less than 1% of adults report listening to shortwave radio weekly. RFA Lao’s listeners come overwhelmingly via FM stations on the Thai border — 94% of past-week listeners report hearing RFA on FM. (Laos is so small that border FM stations have decent penetration into the country). RFA Vietnamese 

  • Cuts: 2 hours shortwave

  • Continuing Distribution: Medium-wave coverage of all broadcast hours remains on; multimedia web and mobile sites (with circumvention tools deployed) include webcasts and other videos; social media

  • Shortwave radio is very little-used in Vietnam — less than 1% of adults report any weekly use of the waveband, and RFA reaches just 0.2% of adults weekly on radio. Medium-wave is slightly more popular, but the future for USIM in Vietnam is likely online: 26% of Vietnamese use the Internet weekly now (with much higher rates among certain populations, like the young and the well-educated), and three in four personally own a mobile phone. While Vietnam attempts to block access to sensitive sites, Vietnam is actually the most active country in our most popular Internet Anti-Censorship tools with almost 600 million hits per day. Languages that continue on shortwave:

    VOA

  • Afan Oromo/Amharic/Tigrigna to Ethiopia and Eritrea

  • Bambara

  • Burmese

  • Cantonese

  • Dari

  • English to Africa

  • English to South Sudan

  • French to Africa

  • Hausa

  • Khmer

  • Kinyarwanda/Kirundi

  • Korean

  • Kurdish

  • Mandarin

  • Pashto (to FATA and Afghanistan)

  • Portuguese to Africa

  • Somali

  • Swahili

  • Tibetan

  • Shona/Ndebele/English to Zimbabwe

     

    OCB

  • Spanish to Cuba

    RFE/RL

  • Avar/Chechen/Circassian

  • Belarusian

  • Dari

  • Pashto (to FATA and Afghanistan)

  • Persian

  • Russian

  • Tajik

  • Turkmen

  • Uzbek 

    • RFA

  • Burmese

  • Cantonese

  • Khmer

  • Korean

  • Mandarin

  • Tibetan

  • Uyghur

     

    MBN

  • Arabic (Afia Darfur to Sudan/Chad)

 

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