[IRCA] VOA-TV grows; VOA SWBC is dying fast. CAT actually mentions IBOC!!

[Charles A & Leonor L Taylor <calltaylor@xxxxxxx>]

At 12:38 AM 3/20/2006, you wrote:
>Charlie, I have been checking the current job openings for the
>Broadcasting Board of Governors (VOA, Radio and TV Marti, and various
>support elements) weekly for years. I find it to be an interesting
>insite as to what the agency is doing. For example, VOA recently hired a
>number of TV producers and TV tech support personnel in the DC area. So
>they are ramping up for something involving video.

Pat Griffith,

Everything is moving toward satellite, VOA-TV and Worldnet (Not really sure 
what Worldnet was. Maybe IBB-TV) Maybe VOA-TV will replace Worldnet.

Anyway, just like BBC, VOA is cutting back on SW broadcasting. For a major 
part of the developed world, SWBC is gone. Whose grandkids listen to SW (or 
AM, for that matter)?  It's either satellite or TV or Internet.

That leaves vast stretches of South America and Africa unaccounted for. 
Well, even outback Brazil has cellular telephone, satellite dishes 
everywhere, and the Internet. And VOA dropped Portuguese to Brazil [net 
LA-3] years ago. Only the poor outbackers lack that stuff. Once you factor 
out Brazil, the rest of South America gets to be nearly irrelevant outside 
the cities.

Africa is different. However, the telephone system in Africa was mostly 
nonexistent. Now cellular telephone has leapfrogged Africa into being 
interconnected with the rest of the world without copper wire systems. Even 
the poor can buy cellular phones.
As the price of PCs and satellite continue to drop, at least villages will 
be able to have PCs and satellite TV in community centers.

So the only real use BBC and VOA have for SWBC remains outback 
Spanish-speaking South America, Africa and China.

I can't speak for Asia, but China and India are headed in the same 
direction. Everything electronic is made in China and all kinds of services 
that require a good knowledge of English are moving to India and Pakistan.

I guess China remains a prime SWBC target because they STILL don't carry 
VOA local-placement programs and they try to control the Internet. But the 
PRC Chinese middle class grows and grows and there's not a damned thing 
that the PRC government can do about the PRC Chinese middle class getting 
satellite access.

So eventually, SWBC will get to become passé for PRC.

I'm an AM/MW DXer til I die, and just twixt you and me, Pat, I'm an 
Internet hog. Satellite is going to kill MWBC once enough old,
ignorant, undereducated, non-élite geezers like me decide to listen to 
[shudder] RUSH LIMBAUGH on satellite or DSL Internet.

IBOC? Nice idea but already gone the way of the crystal radio. Technology 
leapfrogs over IBOC. When am I going to buy an IBOC AM or FM receiver? 
Never. I'll get DSL Internet or subscribe to the relevant satellite stuff 
B4 I buy one-a them-thar IBOC doodaddies.

>The Office of Cuba
>Broadcasting in Miami presently has an opening for an Electronics
>Technician. One of the KSA requirements is a knowledge of aerostat-based
>TV broadcast transmission. I had heard rumors that the TV Marti aerostat
>in the Keys was destroyed by Katrina / Rita and would not be replaced.
>This job opening seems to contradict that rumor.

I think that's that hopeless TV-Martí. A TV station with no transmitter. 
TV-Martí goes out on satellite and is available to everyone except the 
target area. I'll bet TV-Martí on satellite is popular. But not in Cuba. As 
long as TV-Martí uses a flying balloon transmitter with a low power, it'll 
never count for dogpoop.


Wait 'til Castro croaks!

73 de Charlie 



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