Toronto Star, 1 July 2001, page D05
BBC bows out of short-wave --- World Service scrapped in favour of Net broadcast
Peter Goddard
"This is the BBC World Service ..."
Not anymore, at least not if you are trying to find it on short-wave radio.
As of today, the BBC on short-wave - "one of the marvels of modern science," according to King George V in 1932 - is being scrapped in North America and the Pacific Rim because of a newer marvel of modern science, the Internet.
And it's left Canadian short-wavers twisting their dials in frustration.
"We are not fighting the new technology," says Sheldon Harvey, a Montreal-based FM radio specialist heading up the Coalition to Save the BBC World Service.
"We're not just a group of short-wave hobbyists, or techno-nerd people. We say 'yes' to the Internet. But we think short-wave radio is still the most efficient way of getting programming. There are no gatekeepers on short wave. There is no one filtering it."
Internet access to BBC programming, 24-hour online streaming and FM simulcasts led the BBC to believe that "our listeners have migrated away from short-wave," says Mark Byford, head of BBC World Service. "In the U.S. twice as many people listen to us on FM as on short wave and 1.5 million users access online each month."
Indeed, some World Service programming will still be heard on Toronto's Jazz-FM (91.1), as well as Guelph's CFRU-FM (93.3), Waterloo's CKMS-FM (90.3), Hamilton's CFMU-FM (93.3) and CKCU-FM (93.1) in Ottawa. But excepting the Guelph station, which has hours of BBC programming, local access is limited mostly to the news.
The question, says Harvey, is how much Canadian listeners actually listen. "A short-wave listener can hear the BBC 24 hours a day. You can't the other ways. For instance, there's BBC's Sports Roundup that's on for hours every Saturday afternoon. But while it's on short-wave but it won't be on the Internet because of copyright restrictions."
Besides, says Harvey, the World Service Web site isn't capable of handling all the hits. "I want them to show me a system than can handle more than a million hits at a time," he says. "It won't happen."
Cash saved by the chop in short-wave transmissions to North America will go to increased short-wave transmission to the Middle East, Asia and the Gulf states, says Byford, where "the majority of our audiences still use short-wave as a primary way of accessing our programs."
Another casualty could be Radio Canada International (RCI), Canada's own Montreal-based service, which might be hit with a $250,000 bill, says RCI spokesman Ousseynou Diop. The collapse of BBC short-wave in Canada can mean the end of an RCI-BBC deal seeing each service using the other's transmitters. Without the BBC using its equipment, RCI may have to pay more.
Although now heard in 35 languages, and broadcasting 796 hours a week to an audience of 151 million people, the BBC World Service had about as rough a road getting on the air as leaving it.
In the 1920s, the sun may have been setting on the British Empire, but not on BBC's desire for an "Empire Service," even if short-wave broadcasting was still in the experimental stage. By the late '20s, other nations were rushing to establish their own short-wave services to reach their remaining colonies. But BBC bean-counters dug in their heels about funding such a hair-brained idea.
"I do not feel that we are justified in continuing a fairly expensive service for a few scattered individuals over the world," wrote the BBC's Chief Accountant in 1929. "I do not think we should be justified in adopting this policy except as a result of considerable pressure on the part of the Colonial Office."
But on Dec.19, 1932, the World Service broadcast to Australia and New Zealand via short-wave for two hours. And on that Christmas Day, George V took to the short-wave "to speak to all my peoples through the Empire to men and women so cut of by the snows and the deserts or the seas that only voices out of the air can reach them."
The bean-counters had lost the day - until today.
