Tag Archives: Radio Free Europe

Listen to RFE Hungary’s 1956 Revolution Broadcast

Many thanks to SWLing Post executive producer, Scott Gamble, who shares the following article from Hungary Today:

From October 19th until November 12th, Radio Free Europe‘s (RFE) Hungarian broadcast recorded around and during the 1956 Revolution can be listened to online, exactly how it was aired 63 years ago minute by minute, HVG reported.

The Hungarian broadcast of RFE’s 1956 program that was aired on shortwave, through foreign transmitters, was recorded at the repeater stations, and has been preserved thanks to the German government’s examination of the radio’s role in the revolution, launched after the events.

After the inquiry, however, the footage, consisting of 60 tapes, was concealed in a basement for decades, until it was rediscovered in the 90s, transferred to cassettes, and digitized.

In the framework of the First University Radio in Pest’s (Els? Pesti Egyetemi Rádió- EPER) voice memorial project dubbed “SZER56” (derived from the radio’s Hungarian name: Szabad Európa Rádió), people can hear (once again) these recordings. The recordings were restored, digitized, and published by the National Széchényi Library (OSZK), which EPER then restored to the original broadcast session.

The footage includes four days that preceded the outbreak of the Revolution, making it the only available recording that preserved the 50s’ “every day” shows. Moreover, this would be the first time the public can hear this outstanding piece of media history. In addition to political broadcasts, the recordings include radio plays, musical compositions, and even quizzes.

The “broadcast” will be available from Saturday on eper.elte.hu or here and here.

Click here to read the full article at Hungary Today.

Thank you for the tip, Scott!

Readers: If you know of any way we could obtain these recordings, I would love to add them to the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive.

Spread the radio love

Radio Free Europe “set to restart in Hungary”

5 Replies

(Source: Budapest Business Journal)

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the U.S. government-funded organization that broadcasts news and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East “where a free press is banned or not fully established,” is set to restart in Hungary, following recent relaunches in Bulgaria and Romania.

During the Cold War, Radio Free Europe – whose motto is “Free Media in Unfree Societies” – was broadcast to Soviet satellite countries. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, it wound up the service in Hungary in 1993, considering the collapse of communism to be mission accomplished, recalls a report in The New York Times (NYT) dated September 6.

The article comments that the move to relaunch the service by the U.S. Agency for Global Media, an independent federal agency, reflects Hungary’s drift away from a free and open government under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán[…]

“We’ve done our homework, and we know this has broad backing, and we’re preparing to move forward,” the agency’s chief, John Lansing, is cited as saying. He adds that the service’s initial budget could run up to USD 750,000, and that a bureau would be established in Hungary. He expects a soft launch of the service in May 2020, with a hard launch one year from now.[…]

Continue reading the full article at the Budapest Business Journal.

Note: I seriously doubt “restarting” RFE for Hungary would include any shortwave radio broadcasts. I suspect this would equate to their website and streaming media.

Spread the radio love

Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) rebranded as U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM)

3 Replies

(Source: BBG/USAGM Press Release)

WASHINGTON, Aug. 22, 2018

John Lansing (Source: BBG)

Effective immediately, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), an independent U.S. government agency that employs thousands of talented journalists, storytellers, and media professionals, is now the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM).

The U.S. Agency for Global Media is a modern media organization, operating far beyond the traditional broadcast mediums of television and radio to include digital and mobile platforms. The term “broadcasting” does not accurately describe what we do. The new name reflects our modernization and forward momentum while honoring our enduring mission to inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy.

We recognize the overdue need to communicate the evolving, global scope of our work as well as our renewed, urgent focus on the agency’s global priorities, which reflect U.S. national security and public diplomacy interests. USAGM is an independent federal agency that provides accurate, professional, and objective news and information around-the-globe in a time of shifting politics, challenging media landscapes, and weaponized information. Our identity and name will now address these realities.

The decision to change our name was a result of thorough research and extensive consultation with numerous internal and external stakeholders, including the BBG Board of Governors, agency staff and leadership at all levels, the five networks, Congress, the Administration, and interagency colleagues.

As with the BBG, the U.S. Agency for Global Media encompasses five networks: the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (Television and Radio Martí), Radio Free Asia (RFA), and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN). These networks collectively reach an unduplicated weekly audience of 278 million people in 59 languages and in more than 100 countries. Insulated by a firewall from political influence, these networks will continue to deliver truth and professional journalism to people living in some of the world’s most closed societies.

Now more than ever, people around the world need access to the truth. USAGM continues to tell the truth, and illuminate the world like no other news organization in the world.

Video: Lansing On USAGM

Click here to view on YouTube.

Learn more about U.S. Agency for Global Media

For more information

Nasserie Carew

US Agency for Global Media Public Affairs

202-203-4400

publicaffairs@bbg.gov

Spread the radio love

BBG sets five-year goals

2 Replies

(Source: Radio World via Richard Langley)

BBG Sets Itself a Series of Five-Year Goals

Agency points to security, need to keep pace with changing media landscape

The Broadcasting Board of Governors has a definite goal for the next five years — advance America’s national interests, work in tandem with the current administration’s national security strategies, and keep its networks up to speed with the way the media landscape has changed.

The board, known widely as BBG, recently released its 2018–2022 Strategic Plan titled “Information Matters: Impact and Agility in U.S. International Media.” The plan was presented to the board during the group’s March board meeting in Washington.

“This plan is a comprehensive roadmap for moving the agency forward in the next five years, including significantly increasing our audience reach,” said BBG Chief Executive Officer and Director John F. Lansing.[…]

Click here to read the full article at Radio World.

Spread the radio love

RFE/Radio Liberty add transmitter in Lithuania

10 Replies

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Kim Elliott, who notes that Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty have added a new transmitter in Lithuania:

(Source: The Baltic Course)

A new transmitter will be launched in Lithuania this week for broadcasting the Russian and Belarusian-language services of the US Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) aimed at countering Russian propaganda, reports LETA/BNS.

It will replace a 52-year-old transmitter in Sitkunai, close to Kaunas, that has been transmitting programs for listeners in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova at a lower quality.

The medium wave (AM) transmitter was manufactured some five years ago and was used by the US Defense Department in Western Germany to broadcast a radio program for American troops stationed abroad.

The transmitting power of the new device is set at 75 kilowatts, the same as that of the old one, but it can be increased up to 300 kilowatts if needed, Rimantas Pleikys, the owner of Radio Baltic Waves International, said.[…]

Kim noted that the US Embassy in Vilnius also reported on the RFE tower dedication. Click here to read the post.

Thanks for sharing, Kim!

Spread the radio love

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 <corrections@washpost.com> 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.

Spread the radio love

Cold War Broadcasting: Two articles feature RFE & Radio Liberty

7 Replies

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Andrea Borgnino, who shares the following article from the website Journalism Is Not A Crime:

From Propaganda to Journalism: How Radio Free Europe Pierced the Iron Curtain

The end of the Second World War signaled the beginning of an information war in Europe. As the military alliance between the Soviet Union and its main western allies — the United States and Britain — came to an end, the USSR backed small communist parties that asserted ever-tighter control over much of Eastern Europe.

Speaking in Fulton, Missouri in March 1946, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill warned of an “Iron Curtain” of totalitarian control sealing off half the continent. His speech heralded the beginning of an ideological “cold war” that would last for more than 40 years, a struggle in which citizens of the eastern camp were only meant to hear one side of the argument.

“We talk about the Iron Curtain as a physical barrier, but it was also an information curtain,” says A. Ross Johnson, a former director of Radio Free Europe and author of a history of RFE and its companion station, Radio Liberty, which broadcast into the Soviet Union. “All the communist regimes saw control of information as a key to their rule.”

Continue reading…

An SWLing Post contributor also recently shared the following PDF article by A. Ross Johnson for the Wilson Center. Here’s the summary:

To Monitor and be Monitored– Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty during the Cold War

Monitoring of Soviet bloc radios was an important input to Radio Free and Radio Liberty broadcasts during the Cold War. RFE and RL also monitored the official print media and interviewed refugees and travelers. Soviet bloc officials in turn monitored RFE, RL, and other Western broadcasts (while jamming their transmissions) to inform themselves and to counter what they viewed as “ideological subversion.” On both sides, monitoring informed media policy.

RFE and RL monitored their radio audiences through listener letters and extensive travel
surveys, while the Communist authorities monitored those audiences through secret police
informants and secret internal polling. Both approaches were second-best efforts at survey
research but in retrospect provided reasonably accurate indicators of the audience for RFE, RL, and other Western broadcasters.

Click here to download the full Wilson Center article as a PDF.

If you’re interested in Cold War broadcasting, I would also encourage you to check out Richard Cummings’ blog, Cold War Radio Vignettes.

Spread the radio love