http://mountainrunner.us/2012/01/bbg_heil/
All Quiet on the Western Front: a look at the Five-Year Strategic Plan for U.S.
International
Broadcasting
By Alan L. Heil Jr.
This article originally appeared at American Diplomacy. It is republished here,
slightly
modified, with permission of the author and American Diplomacy.
As the Voice of America marks its 70th anniversary, what lies ahead for all of
the world´s
publicly-funded overseas networks in the year ahead? For Western broadcasters
collectively,
2011 was the most potentially devastating year in more than eight decades on
the air. Now,
because of fiscal uncertainties in their host countries and rapidly evolving
competition from
both traditional and new media, they face huge cuts in airtime and operations.
Can America
step up to help fill the gap? A new strategic plan for U.S.-funded overseas
broadcasting
charts a possible path.
Over the years, the government networks in Europe and North America have
offered a
window on the world and a beacon of hope for hundreds of millions of
information-denied or
impoverished people on the planet. They have done so by offering accurate,
in-depth,
credible news, ideas, educational and cultural fare, consistent with Western
journalistic
norms and the free flow of information enshrined in the 1948 U.N. Declaration
of Human
Rights. The broadcasts have enhanced America´s security, and even saved lives.
They
helped foster a largely peaceful end to the Cold War.
Consider, then, the events of the year past:
-The BBC World Service, because of resource cuts, has lost five language
services
(Albanian, English to the Caribbean, Macedonian, Portuguese to Africa and
Serbian). Seven
more services, including Mandarin Chinese, Russian and Spanish to Cuba, have
ended all
radio programming, focusing instead, as appropriate, on mobile, television and
on-line
content and distribution. Over the next five years, World Service projections
are a loss of 30
million of its 180 million radio listeners and a reduction of about a quarter
of its professional
staff. This is the result of a cut in grant-in-aid funding by the United
Kingdom´s Foreign and
Commonwealth Office.
-Germany´s Deutsche Welle (DW) is also facing substantial reductions. DW
discontinued
shortwave radio broadcasts in German, Indonesian, Persian and Russian. Chinese
will be
halved from two hours to an hour daily. As 2012 dawned, Deutsche Welle
scheduled
reductions in its shortwave broadcasts from 260 to 55 hours each day. It
remains on the air
on shortwave in English only to Africa.
-Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW) is an award-winning network distinguished
for its
documentary and in-depth cultural and public service broadcasting in English
and other
languages. But now, RNW funding is being cut 80 percent, effectively silencing
one of the
West´s most attractive voices of reason to audiences everywhere.
-France´s overseas services, Radio France Internationale (RFI), France 24, and
TV5, also
are in the throes of an existential crisis. RFI and France 24 merger action has
resulted in
protest demonstrations by staff members affected. Finance ministry auditors in
Paris have
recommended ending all shortwave and AM radio programming of RFI worldwide to
save
money. Beginning January 1, shortwave is due to be cut from 102 to 60 hours
daily after talks
between RFI and TDF, the agency that has managed transmissions for RFI.
-The Voice of America ended its broadcasts in Croatian last November 23.
Earlier in the
year, the Voice´s oversight Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) had announced
plans to
abolish ten hours daily of VOA Chinese Mandarin shortwave broadcasts and an
hour daily of
TV as well as the Cantonese Service, while investing more in VOA new media
services to the
PRC. But that decision was wisely modified in the wake of the Arab awakening
and
expressions of Congressional concern. VOA Director David Ensor and BBG member
Victor
Ashe recently informed their Chinese Branch colleagues of a commitment to
retain a
multimedia VOA service to the PRC. Earlier reports were that they would retain
some radio
and double their TV programming to two hours a day to enter the growing
satellite TV market
in the PRC. New multimedia tools, such as a VOA Chinese language iPhone app,
also are
being developed.
Until a few months ago, the West´s publicly-funded international broadcasters -
including
those of the United States - together reached at least a third of a billion
adults around the
world each week. Now, they face the prospect of losing tens of millions in
audience share,
even with the explosion of social media. All this, as Radio China International
(RCI), Radio
Russia, Iran´s Press TV, and Qatar´s Al Jazeera, significantly expand their
operations. China,
for example, spends two billion dollars a year on external media, about triple
the outlay for all
five publicly-funded U.S. overseas networks. Ironically, Beijing, Moscow,
Tehran and Doha
have all ramped up transmissions in English, just as the BBC and VOA have cut
theirs back.
In December, the five directors of the Western networks meeting in London noted
increased
jamming of international satellite TV programming in 2011, especially by Iran.
They called on
the International Telecommunication Union in Geneva to take up the issue at an
upcoming
meeting. The director generals also appealed to satellite operators and service
providers "to
recognize the importance of the role they play in ensuring the free flow of
information."
MEETING THE CHALLENGES
Given this background, does the United States have a more pressing national and
global
security responsibility to enhance its overseas media services and the content
of those
services, given the decline of its Western partners on the world´s airwaves?
Most assuredly,
yes. Can U.S. international broadcasting, using the framework of its
newly-announced five
year strategic plan, successfully meet and master the challenges? Hopefully,
yes. The
challenges are:
1) Saving money in times of fiscal austerity affecting all the Western
government networks
2) Modernizing and coordinating delivery systems amid the rapid changes each
year in the
way people receive and share information in a digital age
3) Creating compelling, competitive program content and robust dialogues with
influential civil
society actors in the increasingly crowded electronic marketplace of
traditional and new
media
4) Retaining a multi-regional presence in VOA English, our own mother tongue
and
indisputably, the primary world language of commerce, diplomacy, and the
Internet.
The relatively new U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors unveiled a landmark
strategic plan
last November 1. BBG Chairman Walter Isaacson recently told the Congressional
Quarterly
Weekly that the plan aims "to consolidate, integrate and streamline" the
complex U.S.
overseas broadcasting establishment. In addition to VOA, the only full service
global network
offering a mix of world, U.S. and regional news, there are four other smaller,
distinctly
separate regionally-targeted networks: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
(RFE/RL), Radio
Free Asia (RFA), the Middle East Broadcasting Network (Alhurra and Radio Sawa)
and the
Office of Cuba Broadcasting (Radio-TV Marti in Spanish).
Kim Andrew Elliott, a pre-eminent Arlington, Virginia, observer and
international broadcast
research analyst, posed the question as early as 1989: "Too many Voices of
America?" A
nine-member part-time bipartisan Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) was
created in
1994 to oversee this conglomerate. It consists of four Democrats and four
Republicans, and
the Secretary of State as an ex-officio member, usually represented at monthly
Board
meetings by an Undersecretary for Public Affairs and Public Diplomacy.
On July 29, 2010, an entirely new BBG convened behind closed doors the day
after being
formally installed at a public session. It was a defining moment. One of the
nine governors
recalls: "We looked at each other, and everyone agreed: `This isn´t going to
work´." They had
done their homework and concluded that the five separate networks, each with a
distinct
"tribal culture," had no day-to-day coordinated central management. Moreover,
they operated
in different institutional frameworks:
-two of them are federal agencies, operating under U.S. government civil
service or foreign
service rules: VOA, the Martis, and the support agency for both, the
International
Broadcasting Bureau (IBB). VOA´s Charter (PLs 94-350 and 103-415) requires it
to be an
accurate and objective source of news about America and the world as well as a
conveyor of
major U.S. thought, institutions and policies and discussion of these.
-three of the networks are privately-incorporated but fully U.S.
government-funded grantees,
chartered to be alternative free surrogate media in regions they reach: RFE/RL,
RFA, and the
Middle East Broadcasting Network Inc. (MBN, like VOA, does provide a mix of
area, world,
and U.S. news and content to its viewers and listeners). The International
Broadcasting
Bureau (IBB) is co-located with VOA and the Board offices in southwest
Washington, DC. It
provides technical distribution, marketing, and program placement services for
all the
networks. IBB also operates other vital services (human resources, program
evaluation,
security, contracting, IT) for the federal entities. That makes managing VOA
and OCB much
more difficult than it was 20 years ago under the now-abolished United States
Information
Agency. Then the VOA director had under his or her aegis all functions,
including that of
budgetary and human resources control (now part of the BBG or IBB
superstructures).
A MANSION OF MANY MISSIONS?
How did this cumbersome 21st century broadcasting bureaucracy come about? The
late
Mark Hopkins, a VOA correspondent in Moscow, Belgrade, Munich and Beijing in
the 1970s
and 1980s, said that over the years, various parties and constituencies felt
compelled to add
"a cupola here, a porch there" to meet what they saw as national strategic
needs of the
moment. It was helter skelter. Some steps were taken in the Executive Branch,
others by
individual members of Congress, and some even by individual networks determined
to
extend their mandate.
The result: 22 of VOA´s language services have been duplicated in other
networks since
1950 (although most of the grantees and VOA also broadcast in unique languages
of their
own). Perhaps the single most devastating loss for VOA, critics say, was the
loss of its half
century old Arabic Service in 2002. An earlier BBG removed it from the Voice
and privatized it
two years later under the latest cupola added in 2004, the Middle East
Broadcasting
Networks Inc. The Board, on the other hand, points to research indicating
substantial
viewership of MBN´s Alhurra. Lately, there has been something of a convergence
in the
increasingly sophisticated content mix of VOA and the grantees, crucial to
their credibility. By
and large, however, distinct content continues to reflect distinct missions.
THE ROAD AHEAD
This was the situation inherited by the new oversight Broadcasting Board at its
inaugural
gathering in the summer of 2010. At that session, the seeds were sown for its
new strategic
plan, "Impact through Innovation and Integration." The six and a half page
document
incorporated the views of more than 70 outside specialists. It is based, as
well, on a more
comprehensive annual BBG language service review. The 2012-2016 strategic
forecast calls
for:
-Appointment of a day-to-day chief executive officer for all five networks.
This role is now
filled on an interim basis by the director of the International Broadcasting
Bureau, Dick Lobo.
He is a federal officer, and the grantees are private corporations, limiting
his mandate. But he
has improved coordination among the networks and is overseeing a merger of
their overseas
news bureaus. There have been more joint programming ventures among the five in
the past
year since Lobo assumed office than in the 70 previous years of U.S. overseas
broadcasting
- particularly in coverage of the Arab awakening.
-Combining the BBG and IBB bureaucracies, which had operated somewhat
independently
since the Board was established in 1994. The cost of the two organizations in
the
Administration´s current annual budget proposal is more than a third of the
$767,030,000
requested for all of U.S. international broadcasting. Appropriators in both the
House and
Senate prescribed substantial cuts in the IBB in separate reports approved last
summer. One
way to achieve this would be by consolidating the BBG and IBB support staffs.
The merger
became official on January 15, 2012 and consolidated various BBG/IBB operations
to create
units for Communications and External Relations, Strategy and Development, and
Digital and
Design Innovation.
-Consolidating administrative support for the privately-incorporated grantees
(RFE/RL, RFA,
and MBN). Deloitte, a consulting agency hired to examine the feasibility of the
strategic plan,
says that combining the financial management, technical staffs, and purchasing
power pools
for equipment and services of the three entities might yield annual savings of
between
$9,000,000 and $14,000,000. These savings, the consultant adds, "could be
redeployed
toward journalistic initiatives that advance the Board´s strategic vision."
Deloitte quoted
grantee executives as conceding that the present structure was haphazardly
built over time,
and "would not be the logical approach if one were starting fresh." Deloitte
agreed. It
endorsed the concept of grantee administrative consolidation.
-De-federalizing the government agencies: VOA, IBB, and the Martis. The
advantage of
privatizing the three departments is that they would be on the same basis,
administratively,
as the three grantees. This could pave the way for streamlined, common,
presumably cost
saving procedures across all of U. S. international broadcasting. A single
consolidated,
publicly-funded, private corporation likely would be easier to manage. Its
output might be
perceived by users as less subject to U.S. government interference, although
journalistic
content "firewall" procedures have been pretty effectively enforced by
successive Boards
since 1995.
Deloitte, while endorsing the Board´s proposal to merge the grantees, is still
looking at de-
federalization of VOA and Martis. The consultant suggests that a feasibility
study include: 1)
Partial integration in 2012 of a few VOA and Marti administrative operations
with those of the
grantees, short of full-scale privatization that would require new legislation,
and 2) A longer
term look into the feasibility of full-scale de-federalization of those two
networks and IBB,
including benefits, risks, and financial impact. De-federalization, however,
faces opposition by
those in Congress who view the flagship VOA and its support organization as
vital to the
nation´s security.
-Repealing the clause of the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act that prohibits the
dissemination of BBG
materials within the United States. Congress is actively considering repeal,
led by
Representatives Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) and Adam Smith (D-Washington). For the
first
time, both the State Department and the BBG have actively supported a change in
the old
law and proposed language to abolish the prohibition. (The original legislation
was passed
shortly after World War II to prevent any sitting administration from using
U.S. government
media to influence the American public. But in the 21st century, all five
overseas networks
have websites and content easily accessible to millions of Americans, making
the original
legislation outdated).
-Abolishing duplicated language services in the five networks. Advocates of
ending overlap
among VOA on one hand and RFE/RL, RFA, MBN and the Martis on the other, say it
is high
time to trim the many "voices of America." Yet a spot check of their respective
websites
shows surprisingly little content duplication on any given day. VOA and MBN
cover world,
regional and U.S. news. RFE/RL, RFA and the Martis focus largely on events in
regions they
reach. Influential users of all ages likely channel surf a combination of the
U.S media over
time, finding them for most part complementary in the news, information and
ideas they seek
and share.
Rationalizing which languages to cut in U.S. international broadcasting at
which networks
likely will be the most contentious issue confronting the Board in 2012 and
2013. Many
services have champions on Capitol Hill. Services broadcasting the U.N.
official languages
and several key strategic ones such as Persian and the Afghan languages should
have both
full service content and full service distribution in today´s highly
competitive 21st century
communications environment. Sufficient staffs are required to build new and
social media
platforms in these languages for the burgeoning younger generation around the
globe
inspired by the Arab pro-democracy uprisings. Better to cut bulging support
bureaucracies
than frontline journalists, editors, video producers, and webmasters. As one
knowledgeable
professional international broadcaster put it: "Heavens, yes."
In key languages particularly, cross-streaming of content is essential across
platforms (radio,
television, and a variety of social media channels). BBC Director General Mark
Thompson
told a London conference shortly after the massive BBC World Service cuts were
announced: "The future of news and information is intrinsically multi-platform,
multi-device
and multi-media. No one medium, neither TV, nor radio, nor print, nor even the
web are
sufficient in themselves." Those players with multiple platforms, he added,
"are capturing the
highest amount of news consumption."
-Creation of a Global News Network (GNN) pooling the best journalism and
on-scene
reporting of all five U.S-funded overseas networks. This may be essential to
meet the most
ambitious goal of the BBG´s strategic plan: expansion of the networks´ combined
reach from
165 million in 2010 to 216 million in 2016. The GNN, expected to take shape
soon, will draw
on the reportorial resources of VOA, RFE/RL, RFA, MBN and the Martis.
Collectively, they
have hundreds of correspondents and contract reporters filing in 58 languages
around the
world.
Pilot prototypes of the GNN have already been produced, and skeletal
approximation of a
future combined news roundup appears daily on the main page at the BBG website,
www.bbg.gov. A logical site for assembling a more robust GNN is the VOA
newsroom in
southwest Washington, where space is adequate, English scripts are produced and
where
the Board´s and IBB headquarters are located. A logical state of the art
distribution system is
used by RFE/RL in Prague. It is now being installed at the other networks to
ease transfer
among them of audio, video and website content. GNN, the BBG strategic plan has
said, will
retain the well-established brand names by the originating networks, as
warranted - an
indispensable asset.
As the Board moves ahead on implementing the strategic plan it will, with the
administration´s
approval, be proposing language for a new International Broadcasting Innovation
Act for
Congress to consider.
THE WEST REACHING THE REST?
Just a few days after the BBG´s strategic plan was released, a fresh tally of
the current
audience for U.S. government funded international broadcasting was firmed up
and made
public in mid-November. The claimed global reach on all global media this past
year surged
from 165,000,000 to 187,000,000 adults weekly. Significant increases were
registered in
Indonesian (VOA), Pashto and Dari to Afghanistan (RFE/RL and VOA), Arabic in
Egypt
(MBN), and Hausa to Nigeria and Niger (VOA). Radio Free Asia audiences to
several
southeast Asian countries (11,900,000) were counted for the first time. There
were declines
in VOA Persian News Network viewing in Iran despite the popularity of its
satire program
Parazit, and in VOA´s reach in Pakistan, the Board said, due to a growth in
competition by
new local outlets.
Three elements stood out in this latest research overview:
1) The astonishing growth of the VOA Indonesian audience, largely on
television, from 25
to 38 million
2) The predominance of the Voice in the final cumulative total: 141 million
out of the 187
million listeners/viewers/Internet/short messaging users (about 75 per cent)
3) the way people still get information worldwide, 103 million on radio, 97
million on TV,
and 10 million via the new media[FN1]
All silent on the Western front, informationally? Hardly. The United States
does have an
opportunity to fill in gaps, if it does so wisely within fiscal constraints.
Despite massive cuts in
shortwave transmission facilities by the U.S. over the past nine years and
plans to do so by
all of the so-called Big Five governmental international broadcasters of the
West between
now and 2016, caution is advised. Despite cuts in relay facilities, radio
audiences are more
than holding their own, in U.S. international broadcasting, an 8.7 per cent
increase (9.5
million) between 2010 and 2011. (TV viewing did even better: a 22 per cent
increase (17.5
million viewers), compared with one million more for the Internet this past
year (11 per cent).
As Secretary of State Clinton, an ex-officio member of the BBG, told the Senate
Foreign
Relations Committee in February: "Even though we´re pushing on-line, we can´t
forget TV
and radio because most people still get their news from TV and radio."
Radio World editor Paul McLane recently wrote: "These totals and percentages
suggest to
me that radio´s role as part of Uncle Sam´s face to the international community
is understated
and underappreciated." In the U.S. commercial radio industry, McLane adds, it
is much the
same and "radio continues to post total listening statistics (241 million
weekly listeners) that
other media envy. Radio is the media´s best kept secret!" Only a year ago, BBC
research and
transmission specialists had estimated the World Service´s shortwave radio
audience at 85
million. Silencing shortwave or radio relays via FM stations too early, before
new social media
are better established, would carry real risks (see No. 3 above).
Building and deploying new media, to be sure, are essential in making hard
choices because
the way people consume and share information is changing with lightning speed.
The BBG,
VOA and the social media platform Citizen Global this year began collaborating
on providing
multiple channels (TV, Internet, and audio streams) to enable women in central
Africa´s
conflict zones to share their stories with others. Some interact on line with
those who hear
their grim accounts of rape and pillaging, a sort of "iMovie in the cloud."
Recently, VOA´s
Afghan Service program, Radio Ashna reported a deadly Taliban suicide bombing
in
Kandahar and an appeal for blood donations to help the victims. A number of
donors
responded. A VOA English website (http://middleeastvoices.com) focuses on Arab
world
events and combines radio, TV and text in a daily Syria Report that recently
interviewed the
commander of the Syrian Free Army. A new VOA daily shortwave radio program on
refugee
relief in Somali and Amharic to famine-stricken Horn of Africa has helped
thousands gain
access to lifesaving food and water and even stay in touch with lost family
members. And
VOA Development Office trainers in Hong Kong met a number of journalists from
mainland
China this past year to share ideas with each other about how accurate,
reliable, information
can empower readers, listeners, viewers and bloggers alike.
Content is king, and credibility will continue to be the North Star of U.S.
international
broadcasting program producers and reporters in every region of the world and
in the United
States. As the strategic plan shows, the Board can supply an overarching policy
framework.
But accurate, objective journalism produced at the broadcaster level is what
matters most
and empowers listeners in a wide range of settings, from refugee camps in
Africa, Tibetan
monasteries in India, to large communities of social media consumers in the
cities of China,
Russia, the Arab world, Iran, North Korea, and in an awakening Burma. Although
choices will
be painful for all the broadcasters of the West in the years ahead, progress in
2011 toward
synergies in America´s world services augur well. Congress, after all, has
termed U.S.
international broadcasting a national security function. It, along with the
administration, the
BBG, and the networks themselves, can and must master the challenges. As Edward
R.
Murrow once said: "Our task is formidable and difficult. But difficulty is one
excuse history
has never accepted."
FN1 The totals add up to more than the worldwide cumulative of 187 million
because a
listener/viewer/netizen who uses more than one U.S. government medium or
delivery
system, counts only once.
Alan L. Heil Jr. is a former deputy director of VOA, author of Voice of
America: A History and
editor of Local Voices/Global Perspectives: Challenges Ahead for U.S.
International Media.
This article originally appeared at American Diplomacy. It is republished here
with permission
of the author and American Diplomacy. Be sure to visit American Diplomacy´s
revamped
website.
Guests posts are the opinions of the respective authors, do not necessarily
reflect the opinion
of MountainRunner.us, and are published here to further the discourse on
activities that
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