It’s very sad–but understandable, I guess–that countries around the world are cutting back on their foreign-language broadcasting. The latest to bite the dust is the foreign service of Radio Slovakia. Being a Slovak-American, this one hits home.
I listen to their broadcasts via the Web all the time, and apparently that service is also to be terminated. Here’s what their latest news report has to say:
Slovak Radio, the public broadcaster has announced its intentions to close down its short-wave foreign language broadcasting. The Slovak Radio public relations consultant Jozef Bednar stated that the management of the radio decided to take this radical step to cut costs. Thus the radio hopes to compensate revenue shortfalls in concession payments and payments from the state budget. Within the rationalization measures 84 employees will also be made redundant as of July 31, 2005.
Out of 84 planned redundancies a quarter represent the staff of Radio Slovakia International – the 6th station of the public broadcaster. In their open letter, the team of RSI has expressed concerns that due to these radical cuts the foreign service will not be able to continue fulfilling its mission sufficiently. RSI is considered to be an important, unique and in many cases the only source of information about Slovakia in 6 languages (English, French, German, Russian, Slovak and Spanish).
Despite the efforts of the Slovak Radio management to sustain the foreign broadcast services the Slovak government has not financially supported its existence for this year. Nevertheless, for the period until June 2006, the Economy Ministry has allocated EUR 67 million from the operational program Industry and services. This budget includes EUR 18 million for promoting Slovakia abroad. The annual broadcast of RSI, a well established form of promotion of this country abroad, represents less than EUR 1.4 million a year.
Pretty soon, the only thing you’ll be able to hear on the shortwave bands are the evangelicals.
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