[Swprograms] Why is BBC World Service reducing its short wave provision?

["Jonathan Marks" <jonathan.marks@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Dave, John, et al

If you talk to the receiver manufacturers, you will discover that shortwave
radio sales are indeed on a permanent decline, which explains why there are
just a handful of really good sets out there, not like the 60 or so models
when I was testing them for the WRTH and Radio Netherlands. 

I believe that good content drives technology and if something comes along
which does a more efficient job of delivering content, then it makes a lot
of sense to use it.

The web is great at delivering good audio to many parts of the world with
broadband. Does it replace delivery to a portable radio in rural areas?
No...and the technologies to replace analogue shortwave have just a few
years to get cracking if they don't want to go the way of SSB....I was
copying off some old Media Networks from 1984 and had to laugh at the
predictions that by 2015 we would have progressed to SSB instead of AM.

Public service broadcasting does indeed have a duty to serve all its public
- in areas where a licence fee is charged. So the BBC uses terrestrial
transmitters and spends a fortune getting to the remote Scottish islands
where other channels don't bother with.

I don't think the BBC has an obligation to serve the entire world....it
doesn't. With 6.2 billion people on the planet, their audience of 144
million of people who listen at least once a week means the majority of the
world doesn't listen, or can't listen.

I do think the BBC needs to re-think how it explains to its audience its
shift to different technologies. The current BBC Web page is very poorly
worded. I don't see newspapers telling their readers that the paper is going
to have less pages in it, or that readers in rural areas should stop buying
their publication. Wouldn't it be great if they involved the audience in
finding solutions to their distribution challenges, rather than the method
they are using now. I feel insulted, rather than consulted. 

Hi to all those who remember me,


Jonathan Marks
X-DX but still very much into radio
 

Jonathan Marks

Director

Critical Distance BV

Stam 69

1275CG Huizen

The Netherlands

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