Media Network: 29.05.1998. Broadcasting like the Cutty Sark

Towards the end of May 1998, 150 international broadcasters got together at a hotel golf resort just outside Ottawa for a conference on the future of international broadcasting. It was organised by Radio Canada International together with 6 Canadian Universities and it was the fifth in a series of meetings, all of which have focussed on the future of international broadcasting. Even then, the writing was on the wall for shortwave international broadcasting. Radio Prague in the Czech Republic, for instance, had decided to invest 10% of its programme budget into “new media”. They said they were better able to reach Czechs living abroad using e-mail than their limited shortwave facilities. On the other hand some stations in Asia are actually putting new transmitters on the air although these aren’t being designed in such a way that they could be digitised later. But in the light of the recent decision in October 2010 to fund the BBC World Service in a different way, its interesting to listen to Frits Groothuys who, back in 1998, was responsible for BBC strategy at the World Service in London. He drew a fascinating comparison between international broadcasting and sailing ships like the Cutty Sark. He could not have predicted that the tea clipper he was talking about would catch fire 9 years later, but I think he did forsee that digital shortwave was invented too late.