Category Archives: International Broadcasting

September 10: PCJ Radio International special

ABC scolded for cutting shortwave service

(Source: news.com.au via Trevor R)

The ABC has been slammed by all sides of politics over its “foolish” decision to cut the transmission of shortwave radio to remote Australia and the Pacific Islands.

The Senate debated a private bill on Thursday by crossbench senator Nick Xenophon to force the ABC to restore transmission after it was cut earlier this year.

“It seems a terrible decision that’s been made by the ABC board,” Senator Xenophon told parliament, accusing the public broadcaster of ignoring the bush and Australia’s neighbours.
The ABC insists listeners can still tune in via FM and AM frequencies, the viewer access satellite television (VAST) service and online.

But senators say the ABC fails to understand those alternative methods are not available to everyone in the bush and the information people are missing out on can be life threatening, such as weather warnings.

Senator Xenophon said the ABC had miscalculated how many people relied on the service.
“There are some question marks over the methodology used by the ABC in relation to this.”

Continue reading the full article at news.com.au…

Senate rejects bill to restore Australia’s shortwave services

18 Replies

(Source: Radio Info)

Bill to restore shortwave rejected by Senate Committee

A Senate Committee inquiring into the possibility of restoring ABC Shortwave services has rejected proposed legislation to restore the international radio service.

Several members of the committee presented dissenting reports.

The ABC ended its shortwave transmission service in the Northern Territory and to international audiences from 31 January 2017, in line with the national broadcaster’s commitment to dispense with outdated technology and to expand its digital content offerings.

On 16 February 2017, the Senate referred the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Amendment (Restoring Shortwave Radio) Bill 2017 to the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee for inquiry and report in May but an extension of time to report was granted, until yesterday, 9 August.

Read more at: https://www.radioinfo.com.au/news/bill-restore-shortwave-rejected-senate-committee

UPDATE: Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Richard Langley, who also shares an informative link to the Parliament of Australia’s website.

4KZ Update: broadcasts will commence after transmitter repairs

2 Replies

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Jerome van der Linden, who shares an update from 4KZ Station Manager, Al Kirton:

Hi Jerome

5055 is not on the air yet.

The transmitter failed and requires some inexpensive parts which are not available in Australia. They should be here any day from the US.

We hope to be able to commence in the near future.[…]

Best wishes

Al Kirton
Radio 4KZ

Thanks for sharing this update, Jerome. For more information about 4KZ, check out this previous post.

Editorial doesn’t mention RFE and VOA audio broadcasts

10 Replies

RFE and VOA audio services are broadcast over the air and are streamed online.

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ed, who writes:

The Washington Post’s Editorial Board put out this opinion piece this weekend entitled, “Russian propaganda has flooded U.S. airwaves. How about some reciprocity?”

I wrote to them at <[email protected]> and asked why they didn’t mention the U.S. Government’s considerable state media broadcast resources in their article.

Apparently they never heard of international broadcasting.

Maybe you could link to this article in the SWLing Post and encourage readers to write to the Washington Post’s Editorial Board to enlighten them.

It amazes me that people who work at high levels in a major U.S.-based news media outlet seem so ignorant about international broadcasting.

Thanks, Ed. It is interesting that while the article notes RFE and VOA’s TV program, Current Time (which is only available online), they fail to mention the substantial resources backing RFE/Radio Liberty and VOA’s on-air audio broadcasts that are also available to stream online.