MN.01.10.1998 - Kazakhstan and Future of Shortwave

Looking back through old radio magazines of about 25 years ago, you see some very strange articles. Speakers at international radio conferences like ANARC and the European DX Council proudly talked about short-wave turning to single-sideband by the year 2015 and that satellites would not play a significant role before the end of the century. They seemed to have totally misjudged the competition from commercial TV broadcasters like CNN, or the growing demand from the consumer for better quality audio and more choice. Another denial, this time from BBC World Service. They were reacting to an article in the Sunday Times of London which claimed on the 26th September that BBC’s external service is about to shut some language services. (history is repeating itself in 2010). BBC’s German service, which has just celebrated 60 years on the air, was supposedly to close together with transmissions to Nepal, Portuguese speaking Africa, Slovakia and Hungary. BBC told us that a decision on how to bridge a 5.7 million pound shortfall had not been taken. We also spoke with former RNW programme Director Frans Suasso, who had just returned from a trip to Kazakhstan to examine the media scene there.