[Swprograms] What Follows...

[John Figliozzi <jfiglio1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

...can only be described with a common barnyard epithet.  Another sad  
day for the VOA in particular and U.S. international broadcasting in  
general.  Read on...

John Figliozzi
Halfmoon, NY

From:
IBB Notices Administration <notices@xxxxxxx>

Monday, February 05, 2007 10:22:13 AM


Message from the Board of Governors on the Budget Request for FY 2008

Today, the President’s budget request for fiscal year 2008 will be sent
to the Congress.  This budget request continues to reflect pressures on
the discretionary budget, including requirements for the Iraq conflict.
   In addition, the yearlong continuing resolution (CR) currently  
pending
with Congress indicates that the agency will continue operations at its
FY 2006 level.

In spite of this difficult budget environment, the Administration’s FY
2008 request for the BBG of $668.2 million is a 3.8 percent increase for
the BBG over anticipated FY 2007 levels.  This increase indicates the
Administration’s support for BBG broadcasts as part of its national
security strategy, and includes broadcast initiatives to critical
audiences around the world, including North Korea, the Middle East,
Somalia, and Cuba.

The budget fully funds initiatives begun in FY 2006 to critical Muslim
audiences.  These include the expansion of VOA television to Iran to a
12-hour stream, VOA Pashto programming to the Afghanistan/Pakistan
border region, television programs to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and
Alhurra Europe.

In addition, the request proposes several initiatives originally
proposed in our FY 2007 request.  These include VOA Spanish television
programming to Venezuela, enhanced employee training and awards
programs, expanded affiliate and audience development efforts, as well
as improved transmission for RFE/RL and RFA, and an enhanced news
coverage capability for Alhurra and Radio Sawa.

To fund these increases in support of the Administration’s effort to
provide essential access to news and information for the most critical
audiences, we will be facing significant reductions in other areas.  The
FY 2008 budget includes the elimination of VOA and RFA broadcasts in
Cantonese as well as VOA Uzbek; and reductions to Ukrainian broadcasts
by VOA and RFE/RL, Tibetan broadcasts by VOA and RFA, VOA Portuguese to
Africa, and broadcasts by RFE/RL Romanian, South Slavic and Kazakh.
Other savings will come from reductions in support and administrative
services and the transmission network.

Several of the reductions that were proposed for FY 2007 are included in
the FY 2008 request.  These include eliminating VOA broadcasts in
Croatian, Greek, Georgian and Thai as well as RFE/RL broadcasts in
Macedonian.  The request includes pursuing a television strategy for VOA
in Serbian, Albanian, Bosnian, Macedonian, Hindi and Russian.  The
proposal also calls for discontinuing 14 hours a day of VOA NewsNow
English broadcasts while maintaining VOA’s English to Africa and Special
English services and continuing to strengthen VOA English on the  
Internet.

The proposed reductions are a reflection of very difficult decisions
within a constrained budgetary environment, and are not a reflection on
the quality of the programming of these services.  We must position U.S.
international broadcasting for the future by continuing to enhance
impact and efficiency.  The current budget climate requires that we
utilize our funds to effectively adapt to changing viewing habits and
new technology, and respond to the nation’s most immediate and vital
national security challenges.

We recognize that this budget will be difficult for the agency because
it includes a loss of positions in parts of the agency, and gains in
others.  As in the past, to address some of the hardship for these
realignments, we will try to implement personnel reductions by voluntary
means as much as possible.  The agency has the authority to offer early
out and buyout opportunities to its federal employees, and is offering
these in FY 2007 to try to soften the impact on affected employees.

The submission of the President’s budget request to the Congress is the
beginning of the process for determining the agency’s programs in FY
2008.  None of the proposed reductions may be implemented until the
Congress has approved them.


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