Hague giving BBC World Service £2.2 million to save Hindi shortwave broadcasts

This is fantastic news for BBC World Service’s Hindi shortwave broadcasts. The allocated funds will be given to BBC WS over a 3 year period.Kudos to

Foreign Secretary, William Hague (photo source: Wikimedia Commons)

Foreign Secretary, William Hague, for recognizing the impact of BBC Wold Service’s Hindi language service.

Sadly, the cuts in funds earlier this year will still eliminate vital language services like Albanian, Macedonian, Portuguese for Africa, Serbian, and English for the Caribbean.

(Source: the Guardian)

The BBC World Service’s Hindi short-wave broadcasts have been saved from the axe after the foreign secretary, William Hague, agreed to give extra money to the highly regarded international broadcaster.

Hague has agreed to give an extra £2.2m annually to the World Service for the next three years from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office budget.

This slightly reduces the impact of a controversial 16% cut in the World Service’s FCO grant, announced as part of the government’s comprehensive spending review in October.

Read full article in the Guardian.

Thousands sign petition to save RNW

(Source: RNW Media Network)

More than 11,000 people have signed a petition to preserve RNW’s Dutch-language broadcasts. Iede de Vries, Chairman of the Action Committee, says that in addition there are about 7000 signatures from listeners who depend on programmes in one of the other nine languages. There are also separate petitions from former ambassadors, business and journalisitic organizations. Mr De Vries will lead a delegation from RNW who will hand the petitions to the Dutch parliament on Monday, prior to the debate about the substantial cuts in public broadcasting, including RNW.

Read full article at RNW Media Network. You can join the thousands who support RNW here.

Take the WWV survey online

WWV building in Fort Collins, Colorado (photo courtesy: NIST)

The NIST is doing a comprehensive survey about WWV. If you listen to any WWV stations on shortwave, please take this survey. This will help the NIST know how/why we listen to WWV. The survey also gives you an opportunity to suggest new features for WWV broadcasts.

http://www.tf.nist.gov/survey/

Prominent RNW listeners speak out

RNW headquarters in Hilversum, Netherlands (photo coutesty: RNW)

In the aftermath of RNW’s budget being cut by 70%, prominent world citizens have been voicing support for RNW:

“I will raise my voice and will do my utmost to convince the Dutch government of the powerful effect of Radio Netherlands Worldwide and the value of its work which mustn’t be lost.” –Nobel Peace Laureate, Adolfo Perez Esquivel (Argentina)

Read the full article at RNW.

Would you like to add your voice? Go to this site and sign a petition in support of RNW.

BBC World Service to be allocated additional funding

BBC World Service - Bush House

In the midst of many international broadcasting budget cuts, very good news for the BBC World Service (Source: BBC):

BBC World Service is to receive an extra £2.2m per year over the next three years from the government.

The funding boost will be used to maintain BBC Arabic Service’s “valuable work in the region”, Foreign Secretary William Hague said.

The BBC will also reallocate an additional £9m to safeguard the Hindi language short wave service.

Read full article here.

BBC World Service annual broadcast to Antarctica

(Thanks to Andy Sennitt for bringing this to my attention.)

This year, it’s difficult for me appreciate the annual tradition of broadcasting to the 43 scientists and technicians at the British Antarctic Survey in light of the recent BBC World Service cuts. Still, the broadcast is quirky, nostalgic and certainly DX worth catching.

Here are the times/frequencies courtesy of RNW Media Network:

This half-hour programme will be on the air at 2130-2200 UTC tomorrow (Tuesday 21 June) on the following shortwave frequencies:

  • 5950 kHz  Skelton 300 kW beam 180 degrees
  • 7295 kHz  Rampisham 500 kW  beam 180 degrees
  • 7360 kHz  Ascension 250 kW beam 207 degrees
  • 9850 kHz  Skelton 300 kW beam 180 degrees

Read RNW Media Network’s full article on the broadcast here.