BBC World Service Revives Shortwave to Russia, Ukraine

[Mary Wilson]

PUBLISHED: MARCH 6, 2022 ⋅ UPDATED: MARCH 7, 2022

BY JAMES CARELESS

The BBC World Service is turning to shortwave radio to deliver trustworthy news to Russians, now that the Kremlin is blocking Western media websites’ reporting on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

There is apparently a hunger for alternatives to Putin’s propaganda among Russian-speakers. According to a March 2, 2022, BBC media release, “The audience for the BBC’s Russian language news website more than tripled its year-to-date weekly average, with a record reach of 10.7 million people in the last week (compared to 3.1 million). In English, bbc.com visitors in Russia were up 252% to 423,000 last week.” [The week cited by the BBC was Feb. 21–27, 2022; Russia troops entered Ukraine on Feb. 24. —eds.]

To help satisfy this hunger, the BBCWS announced it is broadcasting four hours of English news daily on two shortwave frequencies, both of which “can be received clearly in Kyiv and parts of Russia,” said a BBC media release. The additional shortwave frequencies are on 15735 kHz operating from 1400 to 1600 UTC and on 5875 kHz from 2000 to 2200 UTC. Eastern European Standard Time, where Kyiv is located, is two hours ahead of UTC; for reference, U.S. Eastern Standard Time is five hours behind UTC.

... “RCI was dismantled because of a lack of vision on how well and important an international service is,” said Gilles Letourneau, co-host of the “International Radio Report” program on CKUT-FM in Montreal and owner of the OfficialSWLchannel on YouTube. “Although Voice of America is still on air, it has changed its focus to Africa and Asia. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is still transmitting, but mostly using medium-wave frequencies rather than shortwave.” ...

Listen here:

https://www.radioworld.com/global/bb...eastern-europe

[sharon sanders]

bump this

[Mary Wilson]

Steve Herman@W7VOA
2h
Details: https://twitter.com/SWLingDotCom/status/1501158728736948233?s=20&t=QiESSDz2RrPvuz8YseJ_ug… #SWLRadio
@VOANews

“Shortwaves for Freedom” campaign is funding VOA and RFE/RL programming

... The people in Russia, as well as those in Ukraine and other countries where Russian, Ukrainian and English are spoken in the imperiled region, need to hear the truth about the carnage President Putin has unleashed.

With Moscow silencing foreign media in Russia, threatening to send reporters to jail and censoring all war information, objective outside information is critically needed not only for Russia, but also for Ukraine and surrounding countries.

Such content, produced by the U.S. government-funded Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is being disseminated on the internet and TV. But these Russian, Ukrainian and English language programs are not being distributed through the simplest technology that skirts censorship and internet shutdowns — shortwave (and medium wave) radio.

The parent agency of VOA and RFE/RL, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, apparently has decided not to air such transmissions (unlike the BBC). As these programs are in the public domain, we plan to air them live and on tape delay by purchasing air time on commercial shortwave stations in the United States and Europe. These powerful transmitters (with hundreds of thousands of watts and large antenna systems) can easily reach Russia, Ukraine and the rest of Eastern Europe where hundreds of millions of people still listen to radio. These potential listeners will be alerted through social media as to what frequencies and times to listen for these critical programs. ...

https://swling.com/blog/2022/03/shortwaves-for-freedom-campaign-is-funding-voa-and-rfe-rl-programming/

[sharon sanders]

bump this