Changes at the BBC World Service: Documenting the World Service's Move From Shortwave to Web Radio in North America, Australia, and New Zealand

Abstract

For most of the 20th century, international broadcasting was characterized by state-run broadcasts carried over shortwave radio. Such broadcasting was at the core of the Cold War and World War II, as well as the decade leading up to World War II. After the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, the geopolitical context that had structured international broadcasting for so long dissolved, allowing for the possibility of significant changes in international broadcasting. One of these changes since the end of the Cold War is the development of Web radio. The year 1995 marks the point when broadcasting over the Web began in earnest. Included in this movement were a number of the primary broadcasters who had been, and still were, active in international shortwave broadcasting. Then, in 2001, after gradually reducing shortwave output to North America, Australia, and New Zealand, the BBC World Service terminated official shortwave broadcasts to these areas. In place of shortwave, listeners were directed to receive BBC World Service programming primarily through Web broadcasts and secondarily through local AM/FM rebroadcasts. The announcement of the termination of these shortwave broadcasts provoked a large and vocal opposition to the cuts from shortwave listeners, professionals in international broadcasting, and even the British Parliament. This article documents the BBC World Service's announcement as well as the reaction it generated.