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entitled 'U.S. International Broadcasting: New Strategic Approach 
Focuses on Reaching Large Audiences but Lacks Measurable Program 
Objectives' which was released on July 15, 2003.

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Report to the Committee on International Relations, House of 
Representatives:

July 2003:

U.S. INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING:

New Strategic Approach Focuses on Reaching Large Audiences but Lacks 
Measurable Program Objectives:

GAO-03-772:

GAO Highlights:

Highlights of GAO-03-772, a report to the Committee on International 
Relations, House of Representatives 

Why GAO Did This Study:

Prompted by a desire to reverse declining audience trends and to 
support the war on terrorism, the Broadcasting Board of Governors 
(BBG), the agency responsible for U.S. international broadcasting, 
began developing its new strategic approach to international 
broadcasting in July 2001. This approach emphasizes the need to reach 
mass audiences by applying modern broadcast techniques and 
strategically allocating resources to focus on high-priority markets. 
GAO was asked to examine (1) whether recent program initiatives have 
adhered to the Board's new strategic approach to broadcasting, (2) how 
the approachs effectiveness will be assessed, and (3) what critical 
challenges the Board faces in executing its strategy and how these 
challenges will be addressed.

What GAO Found:

Consistent with its new plan to dramatically increase the size of U.S. 
international broadcasting listening and viewing audiences in markets 
of U.S. strategic interest, the Broadcasting Board of Governors has 
launched several new projects, including Radio Sawa in the Middle 
East, Radio Farda in Iran, and the Afghanistan Radio Network. These 
projects adhere to the Boards core strategy of identifying a target 
audience and tailoring each broadcast product to market circumstances 
and audience needs. 

The Boards plan lacks measurable program objectives designed to gauge 
the success of its new approach to broadcasting, detailed 
implementation strategies, resource needs, and project time frames. 
A number of key effectiveness measures could provide a starting point 
for developing measurable program objectives and related performance 
goals and indicators under the Boards annual performance plan. These 
measures include audience size in specific markets, audience 
awareness, broadcaster credibility, and whether the Voice of America 
(VOA) effectively presents information about U.S. thought, 
institutions, and policies to target audiences.

The Board has identified a number of market and internal challenges--
such as technological innovation and better coordination of its seven 
separate broadcast entities--that must be addressed to make U.S. 
international broadcasting more competitive. It has also developed a 
number of solutions to address these challenges. However, the Board 
has not addressed how many language services it can carry effectively 
(with the number rising nearly 20 percent over the past 10 years) and 
what level of overlap and duplication in VOA and surrogate broadcast 
services would be appropriate under its new approach to broadcasting. 
Resolving these questions will have significant resource implications 
for the Board and its ability to reach larger audiences in high-
priority markets. 

What GAO Recommends:

GAO makes recommendations to the BBG on (1) revising its strategic 
plan to include measurable program objectives, implementation 
strategies, resource requirements, and project time frames; (2) 
including audience size and other key effectiveness measures as 
program objectives in the strategic plan; (3) revising its annual 
performance plan to track the Boards revised strategic plan; and (4) 
revising the strategic plan to include a clear vision of the Boards 
intended scope of operations. The Board stated that it largely 
concurred with our report recommendations. 

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-772

To view the full report, including the scope and methodology, click on 
the link above. For more information, contact Jess Ford at (202) 512-
4128 or fordj@gao.gov.

[End of section]

Contents:

Letter:

Results in Brief:

Background:

Projects Supporting War on Terrorism Adhere to Board's New Approach:

Effectiveness Is Difficult to Assess Absent Measurable Program 
Objectives:

Board Plans to Address Many Challenges, but Scope of Operations May 
Limit Its Impact:

Conclusions:

Recommendations for Executive Action:

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:

Scope and Methodology:

Appendixes: 

Appendix I: Challenges Facing U.S. International Broadcasting:

Appendix II: Survey Development:

Appendix III: Survey of Program Managers of U.S. International
Broadcasting Entities:

Appendix IV: Comments from the Broadcasting Board of Governors:

Appendix V: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments:

GAO Contact:

Acknowledgments:

Table 1: The Boards Recently Implemented Initiatives:

Table 2: Costs of BBG New Initiatives:

Table 3: Planned Actions and Additional Options:

Table 4: Board-Identified Challenges:

Table 5: Proposed Solutions--Strategic Goals and Objectives:

Figures: 

Figure 1: U.S. Public Diplomacy Community:

Figure 2: The Boards New Strategic Plan:


Abbreviations:

ARN: Afghanistan Radio Network:

BBG: Broadcasting Board of Governors:

CEO: Chief Executive Officer:

COO: Chief Operating Officer:

IBB: International Broadcasting Bureau:

OMB: Office of Management and Budget:

RFA: Radio Free Asia:

RFE/RL: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty:

PART: Program Assessment Rating Tool:

VOA: Voice of America:

Letter July 15, 2003:

The Honorable Henry J. Hyde 
Chairman 
The Honorable Tom Lantos 
Ranking Minority Member 
International Relations Committee 
House of Representatives:

Millions of foreign listeners and viewers turn each week to U.S. 
international broadcasting to obtain news and information about the 
United States and the world. However, the United States' share in 
several broadcast markets has been declining or static for decades due 
to increasing competition and an outdated approach to broadcasting. 
Prompted by a desire to reverse this trend and a sense of urgency 
created by the war on terrorism, the Broadcasting Board of Governors 
(BBG or the "Board"),[Footnote 1] the agency responsible for 
nonmilitary U.S. international broadcasting programs, initiated a new 
strategic approach to international broadcasting in July 2001. The new 
strategy emphasizes the need to reach large audiences by applying 
modern broadcast techniques and strategically allocating resources to 
focus on high-priority broadcast markets, such as the Middle East.

The BBG and the Department of State share an annual budget of about $1 
billion for public diplomacy activities designed to inform, engage, and 
influence foreign audiences. The BBG manages and oversees the Voice of 
America (VOA), WorldNet Television and Film Service, Radio/TV Marti, 
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Radio Sawa, and Radio 
Farda (collectively referred to as the broadcast entities). This report 
focuses on the BBG's public diplomacy efforts. A planned follow-on 
report will assess the Department of State's public diplomacy efforts.

As agreed with your staff, this report examines (1) whether recent 
program initiatives have adhered to the Board's new strategic approach 
to broadcasting, (2) how the approach's effectiveness will be assessed, 
and (3) what critical challenges the Board faces in executing its 
strategy and how these challenges will be addressed.

To accomplish our objectives, we met with individual Board members and 
senior managers from each broadcast entity (including Radio Free 
Europe/Radio Liberty officials in Prague) to discuss a range of 
management issues including the Board's new 5-year strategic plan 
(titled "Marrying the Mission to the Market" and issued in December 
2002), which defines the Board's new approach to broadcasting. We met 
with foreign ministry officials in London and Berlin and broadcasting 
officials from the British Broadcasting Corporation in London and 
Deutsche Welle in Cologne and Berlin to compare their respective 
approaches to public diplomacy and international broadcasting with the 
Board's activities. We also met with several private sector audience 
research firms to discuss a range of performance management and 
measurement issues. Finally, we administered a survey to 34 senior 
program managers across all 7 BBG broadcast entities to obtain their 
views on strategic planning, current operations, program challenges, 
and various program options.

Results in Brief:

Consistent with its new strategic approach to broadcasting, the Board 
has initiated several new programs focusing on attracting larger 
audiences in priority markets and supporting the war on terrorism. 
Launched in March 2002, Radio Sawa in the Middle East replaced VOA's 
Arabic-language service and represents the Board's first attempt to 
implement the new tailored approach to broadcasting. Based on extensive 
research of the target audience, Radio Sawa incorporates brief news 
bulletins in a popular music format aimed at young listeners. A new 
initiative in Afghanistan called the Afghanistan Radio Network and a 
language service to Iran called Radio Farda also have adhered to the 
Board's new broadcasting approach and support the Board's efforts in 
the war on terrorism. Estimated start-up and recurring costs for these 
three projects through fiscal year 2003 total about $116 million. As 
funds become available, the Board intends to launch other high-priority 
projects using its new broadcasting approach, such as an Arabic 
language television network in the Middle East.

While the Board's new approach to broadcasting is based on the need to 
reach large audiences in priority markets, there is not a single long-
term strategic goal or related program objective to gauge the Board's 
success in increasing audience size. Further, the strategic goals that 
are included in the plan (for example, employing modern broadcast 
techniques, assuring broadcaster credibility, and telling America's 
story) are not supported by measurable program objectives and do not 
provide a basis for assessing the Board's performance in these key 
areas. While we recognize that measuring impact is complex, we 
identified a number of key effectiveness measures that could form a 
starting point for creating measurable program objectives that support 
the full range of the Board's strategic goals. These measures include 
audience size in specific markets; audience awareness of BBG 
broadcasting; the credibility of U.S. language service broadcasts; and 
whether VOA language services effectively present information about 
U.S. thought, institutions, and policies to target audiences.

The Board's key challenge in executing its strategy is how to generate 
large audiences while dealing with a number of market, organizational, 
and resource issues. The Board identified several shortcomings in U.S. 
market competitiveness including outdated programs and delivery 
systems. It plans to overcome these problems by promoting, among other 
things, new formats and technologies. Topping the list of 
organizational challenges is the disparate structure of the agency, 
which consists of seven separate broadcast entities and a mix of 
federal agency and grantee organizations that must be collectively 
managed by a part-time Board of Governors. To overcome this challenge, 
the Board proposes treating the broadcast services of the separate 
entities as a "single system" under the Board's direct control and 
ongoing oversight. While the Board's solutions to many of its 
challenges may suffice, our analysis revealed that a number of other 
program options could be considered in the future if the Board's 
efforts falter or prove ineffective. One option would be to further 
consolidate all entities into one organization to streamline the 
management structure, simplify budget and programming decisions, and 
reduce duplicative staff and functions. Finally, the Board has 
concluded that the agency's resources are currently spread across too 
many language services. We found strong support among BBG managers for 
cutting the number of language services to focus resources on a limited 
number of priority markets. However, the Board has not established a 
strategic vision for how many languages should be pursued and what 
level of overlap and duplication among its many entities is 
appropriate.

This report makes several recommendations to the Board to help improve 
agency operations and measurement of program performance. The Board 
provided written comments on a draft of this report and largely 
concurred with our report recommendations.

Background:

U.S. international broadcasting efforts support the three key 
objectives of U.S. public diplomacy, which are to engage, inform, and 
influence overseas audiences. As a news organization, the BBG must 
maintain its journalistic independence while also serving U.S. 
strategic interests as a member of the public diplomacy apparatus. To 
fulfill this latter role, the BBG seeks input from the Department of 
State and the larger public diplomacy community in formulating its 
broadcast plans and making annual decisions on the deletion and 
addition of language services. The Secretary of State serves as a 
member of the Board, further strengthening coordination efforts. Within 
the BBG, VOA, Radio/TV Marti, and WorldNet Television, are organized as 
federal entities, while Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free 
Asia operate as independent, nonprofit corporations and are funded by 
Board grants. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and 
Radio/TV Marti function as "surrogate" broadcasters where a local free 
press does not exist. Congress created the International Broadcasting 
Bureau (IBB)[Footnote 2] in 1994 in an effort to streamline and 
consolidate certain broadcast operations.

Figure 1 illustrates the Board's placement in the U.S. public diplomacy 
hierarchy and its current organizational structure.

Figure 1: U.S. Public Diplomacy Community:

[See PDF for image]

[A] Relevant White House Offices include the National Security Council 
and the Office of Global Communications.

[B] While not considered a major public diplomacy player, USAID 
activities contribute to U.S. public relations and media development 
efforts.

[End of figure]

Each U.S. broadcast entity is organized around a collection of language 
services that produce program content. In some instances, both VOA and 
a surrogate broadcaster run "overlapping" services due to the different 
missions pursued by VOA and the surrogates. For example, both VOA and 
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty have their own Russian language 
service. The BBG currently has a collection of 97 language services--
with a 55 percent overlap between VOA and the surrogates broadcasting 
in the same language.

The Mission of U.S. International Broadcasting:

Each broadcast entity has its own legislated mandate. VOA's mandate is 
to (1) serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative, accurate, 
objective, and comprehensive source of news; (2) represent America, not 
any single segment of American society, and therefore present a 
balanced and comprehensive projection of significant American thought 
and institutions; and (3) present the policies of the United States 
clearly and effectively and also present responsible discussions and 
opinion on these policies.[Footnote 3] In contrast, the role of the 
surrogate broadcasters (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free 
Asia, and Radio/TV Marti) is to temporarily replace the local media of 
countries where a free and open press does not exist. WorldNet 
Television and Film Service provides production and distribution 
support for television broadcasts developed by VOA and the Department 
of State. The Board's public diplomacy mandate also includes helping to 
develop independent media and raising journalistic standards where 
possible.

The Board's New Strategic Approach:

The Board's new approach to broadcasting represents an ambitious 
attempt to reach larger audiences in key markets. To do this, it seeks 
creative solutions that prioritize the use of limited resources and 
marry the mission of U.S. international broadcasting to the needs and 
wants of target audiences. The Board's new strategic plan was issued in 
December 2002; however, development of its new approach to broadcasting 
began in July 2001. The plan was developed to address declining 
audience share in key markets such as Russia and historically static 
performance in key strategic regions such as the Middle East. For 
example, the BBG had a 21 percent market share in Russia in the early 
1990s that has declined to about 4 percent of the adult listening 
audience in recent years. In the Middle East, the VOA's Arabic service 
has for decades reached less than 2 percent of potential listeners.

The Board's new plan outlines a strategic vision for U.S. international 
broadcasting that is designed to move the organization toward a market-
based approach that will generate the large listening audiences in 
priority markets that the Board believes it must reach to effectively 
meet its mission. Early implementation of the plan has focused on 
markets relevant:

to the war on terrorism;[Footnote 4] however, the Board intends that 
many elements of its new approach will be applied to many of its 
language services over time. The Board's vision is to create a 
flexible, multimedia, research-driven U.S. international broadcasting 
system. This system will incorporate regional networks and single-
country operations to reach large audiences by programming the distinct 
content of VOA and the surrogate services through state-of-the-art 
formats and distribution channels controlled by the Board.

Figure 2 provides an overview of the Board's new strategic plan and 
shows the links among the Board's mission statement, vision statement, 
broadcast priorities, strategic goals, and program objectives. Appendix 
I provides a complete list of the goals and objectives.

Figure 2: The Board's New Strategic Plan:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

Strategic plans play a critical role in the management of agency 
operations. Guidance from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 
makes clear that agency strategic plans, annual performance plans, and 
annual performance reports form the basis for a comprehensive and 
integrated 
approach to performance management.[Footnote 5] In the Board's case, 
its performance management is augmented by an ongoing series of program 
reviews of individual language services conducted each year[Footnote 6] 
and an annual comparative review of all language services. Program 
reviews are in-depth assessments of performance conducted by a team of 
management, audience research experts, technical staff, and language 
service staff. The comparative review of language services represents 
an intensive 4-month review by the Board designed to evaluate the need 
for adding or deleting language services and strategically reallocating 
funds to the language services on the basis of priority and impact. 
This year, the Board asked eight language services to prepare 
individual performance plans that capture key elements of the Board's 
new strategic approach to broadcasting, including the need to identify 
a target audience and establish specific audience goals.[Footnote 7] 
These performance plans will become the focus of future program reviews 
and form the final link in a planned performance management system that 
will integrate the Board's strategic plan, performance plan, annual 
language service review, budget preparation process, and program 
reviews into a unified whole. The strategic plan forms the heart of 
this system since it should provide the performance goals and measures 
that drive the Board's entire operations.

Projects Supporting War on Terrorism Adhere to Board's New Approach:

Consistent with the plan's theme of "marrying the mission to the 
market," the Board has applied its new audience-focused broadcasting 
approach to recent initiatives supporting the war on terrorism. The 
first project under the new approach, Radio Sawa in the Middle East, 
was launched in March 2002 using many of the modern, market-tested 
broadcasting techniques and practices prescribed in the plan, in an 
effort to attract a larger, younger population. Follow-on program 
initiatives also adhere to the Board's modern approach to broadcasting, 
though application is tailored to the specific circumstances of each 
target market. These initiatives include the Afghanistan Radio Network 
(ARN) and the new Radio Farda service to Iran. Estimated start-up and 
recurring costs for these three projects through fiscal year 2003 total 
about $116 million. As funds become available, there are plans to 
extend application of the Board's new approach to other high-priority 
markets, such as Indonesia. In addition, the Board hopes to further 
expand its presence in the Middle East through the launch of a Middle 
East Television Network. Future initiatives are expected to require 
additional reallocation of funds and possible supplemental spending by 
Congress.

Application Tailored to Market Circumstances:

The Board has tailored the use of its modern, audience-focused approach 
to broadcasting, taking target audiences and market circumstances into 
consideration when developing and implementing new program initiatives. 
Table 1 provides a brief description of recently implemented projects 
supporting the war on terrorism.

Table 1: The Board's Recently Implemented Initiatives:

Initiative: Radio Sawa; Launch date: March 2002; Project description: A 
modern Arabic-language network that broadcasts music, news, and 
information to young people in the Middle East via a combination of FM, 
medium wave, short wave, digital audio satellite, and Internet 
transmission resources. The network uses four 24-hour, seven-days-a-
week regional programming streams.[A].

Initiative: ARN; Launch date: August 2002; Project description: The 
network combines the distinct news and information program content of 
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Radio Free Afghanistan[B] and VOA's 
Dari and Pashtu language services into a closely coordinated, single 
programming stream targeting the broad Afghani population. The network 
currently broadcasts 24 hours, seven days a week on FM and the 
Internet.

Initiative: Radio Farda; Launch date: December 2002; Project 
description: Radio Farda integrates the distinct music, news, and 
information content of VOA and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty into a 
single programming stream targeting youth in Iran. It broadcasts 24 
hours a day, seven days a week via medium wave, digital audio 
satellite, and the Internet. It also broadcasts 21 hours a day via 
short wave.

Source: Broadcasting Board of Governors.

[A] Radio Sawa's four programming streams are directed at Jordan, 
Egypt, Iraq, and the Persian Gulf countries (i.e., Kuwait, Iraq, United 
Arab Emirates, etc.) and reflect regional tastes and interests.

[B] Radio Free Afghanistan was launched by Radio Free Europe/Radio 
Liberty in December 2001 in an effort to build a peaceful and 
democratic Afghanistan. This service was congressionally authorized.

[End of table]

Radio Sawa:

The first program under the Board's new approach, Radio Sawa in the 
Middle East, was launched using modern, market-tested broadcasting 
techniques and practices, such as the extensive use of music formats, 
to improve performance in this priority market and lend support to the 
war on terrorism by targeting youth audiences. Although music remains a 
large part of the programming on Radio Sawa, the proportion of news and 
information to music is steadily increasing, peaking at 5-hours a day 
during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Radio Sawa replaced the poorly 
performing VOA Arabic service, which had listening rates at around 2 
percent of the population. The Board has survey research indicating 
that Radio Sawa is reaching 51 percent of its target audience and is 
ranked highest for news and news trustworthiness in Amman, Jordan. 
Despite such results, it remains unclear how many people Radio Sawa is 
actually reaching throughout the Middle East because audience research 
has been performed only in select markets and has not yet included 
audiences in key markets like Saudi Arabia.

:

Afghanistan Radio Network:

The Afghanistan Radio Network was launched in August 2002 to more 
effectively use and strengthen the impact of BBG broadcasting resources 
targeted to Afghanistan, a key market for the war on terrorism. ARN 
utilizes broadcasting concepts outlined in the Board's new strategic 
approach, such as tailoring content to the target audience and 
integrating programming streams across entities. Unlike Radio Sawa, ARN 
is not primarily designed to reach a youth audience but a broader 
Afghani audience. Programs are designed to be locally focused and are 
high in educational, news, and information content. BBG service to 
Afghanistan has in the past yielded some of the Board's highest 
listening rates (in 1999 around 80 percent of adult male heads-of-
household). Recent BBG research indicates that the Board is reaching 
about 45 percent of all male and female adults in the listening regions 
of Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif.

Radio Farda:

Radio Farda was launched to strengthen the impact of BBG broadcasting 
resources targeted to Iran, another key market for the war on 
terrorism. Based on audience research and an analysis of specific 
market factors in Iran, the Board tailored the plan's elements to Radio 
Farda. Radio Farda uses modern broadcast techniques to attract a youth 
target audience. Although it uses music formats, Radio Farda also 
strives to provide substantial news and information. The Board claims 
that increases in the volume of e-mail and phone calls from the region 
indicate that the service is gaining popularity among the target 
audience in Iran.

Other New Initiatives:

The Board is planning other program initiatives in support of the war 
on terrorism, and plans indicate that the Board will selectively apply 
its new broadcasting approach to these projects. Future initiatives 
include enhancements to the VOA Indonesian and Urdu services and 
creation of a Middle East Television Network, which represents the 
single largest enhancement to the Board's operations in the coming 
year. Still in the planning stages, the Middle East Television Network 
will be an 18-to 24-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week, U.S.-controlled 
satellite TV service presenting what the Board sees as American-style 
news and information programs in the Arabic language to counter the 
lack of depth and balance in the Middle Eastern media. As television is 
the most important medium in the region for news and information, the 
Board expects to significantly increase its audience size with this 
initiative.

:

Projected Costs of the New Strategy Are Significant:

Certain elements of the Board's new plan will require substantial 
levels of investments. Such elements include broadcasting round-the-
clock, using audience research and music formats extensively, and 
reaching audiences on Board-controlled AM and FM frequencies. Other 
elements do not require as substantial capital investments, such as 
identifying target audiences and redesigning program content to appeal 
to these audiences. Just as Radio Sawa, ARN, and Radio Farda 
incorporate the Board's new broadcasting approach to varying degrees, 
the Board has stated in its strategic plan that it will apply certain 
high-cost elements of its new approach on a case-by-case basis. It 
cannot afford to broadly apply all elements to all language services, 
and some markets do not require such changes for U.S. international 
broadcasting to remain competitive. Table 2 provides a cost summary of 
recently implemented high-priority projects.

Table 2: Costs of BBG New Initiatives:

[See PDF for image]

Source: GAO analysis of BBG data.

N/A = Not applicable.

[End of table]

The estimated price tags for other priority initiatives, such as the 
Middle East Television Network and the expansion of the VOA Indonesian 
service, are also significant. For example, the Board estimates that it 
will cost about $62 million to initiate the Middle East Television 
Network and an additional $37 million annually for recurring 
operational costs. Expanding VOA Indonesian radio and TV programming is 
estimated to cost an additional $3.4 million. Cost estimates for the 
VOA Urdu service program expansion are not yet available because the 
Board has not finalized its plans for this project.

Some of the Board's recent priority projects have been funded in part 
by reallocation of program funds under the Board's annual language 
service review process. For example, the Board funded Radio Farda by 
reprogramming more than $5.6 million in fiscal year 2003 funds and also 
helped pay for Radio Sawa by reprogramming approximately $4.1 million 
in fiscal year 2001 funds from other language services.

Effectiveness Is Difficult to Assess Absent Measurable Program 
Objectives:

The Board's new approach to broadcasting is based on the need to reach 
large audiences in priority markets, but its strategic plan does not 
include a single goal or related program objective designed to gauge 
progress toward increasing audience size. In addition, the plan's seven 
existing strategic goals (for example, to employ modern communication 
techniques or to revitalize efforts to tell America's story) are not 
supported by measurable program objectives that would allow the Board 
and others to gauge the agency's progress in implementing its strategic 
goals.[Footnote 8] While the plan lacks a range of measurable program 
objectives, key effectiveness measures that could be incorporated in 
future versions of the Board's strategic plan include audience 
awareness of U.S. broadcast efforts, audience perceptions of the 
credibility of U.S. broadcasts, and whether VOA effectively presents 
information about the United States and its policies to target 
audiences. Efforts to assess the effectiveness of the Board's new 
approach to broadcasting may also be hampered by the lack of details on 
how the Board intends to implement each of its program objectives. 
Missing from the plan are specifics on implementation strategies, 
resource requirements, and project time frames.[Footnote 9] The Board 
has acknowledged that 
its strategic plan needs to be significantly improved, and major 
changes are planned for the next iteration.[Footnote 10]

Plan Lacks Focus on Audience Size and Other Measurable Program 
Objectives:

The absence of "audience size" as a strategic goal and related 
measurable program objectives represents one of the most significant 
oversights in the Board's strategic plan. The strategic plan references 
the importance of reaching a large audience in priority markets as the 
key driver behind the Board's new approach to broadcasting and notes 
that audience size is the most readily available and accurate impact 
measure it has. Despite the central importance of audience size to the 
Board's new approach to broadcasting, the plan is silent on how these 
data should be incorporated as a measurable program objective or series 
of program objectives to gauge the Board's effectiveness in this key 
area. The Board has traditionally reported audience size in its annual 
performance plan; however, this reporting lacks any contextual meaning 
since it is not tied to a program objective(s) defining the Board's 
multiyear vision for what it would like to accomplish in this area. In 
addition, the Board's practice of reporting audience size goals and 
accomplishments at the entity level in its annual performance plan 
obscured important performance data at the regional and language 
service level.

We also found that the plan's existing strategic goals are not 
supported by measurable program objectives. The strategic plan has 17 
program objectives,[Footnote 11] any of which can be used to illustrate 
the lack of performance goals and expectations. For example, under the 
goal of employing modern communication techniques and technologies, one 
objective is to accelerate multimedia development and infuse more 
television and Internet into the mix. The Board's plan only makes broad 
assertions about the need to "do more with TV where market realities 
demand and resources permit" and that the Board "will ensure that all 
entities have world-class Internet presences.":

Under the goal of progressively building out the U.S. international 
broadcasting system, the Board lists the successful launch of Radio 
Sawa as a program objective. Again, the plan makes broad statements 
about the need to attract and build a significant audience in the 
Middle East and present news that is objective, comprehensive, fresh, 
and relevant. However, it does not provide details on expected 
performance levels. Specifically, the plan does not establish short-or 
long-range target audience figures for the Gaza strip, West Bank, and 
17 countries in the Middle East and Africa to which Radio Sawa will 
eventually broadcast.

A Range of Effectiveness Measures Could Be Incorporated in the Board's 
Plan:

Our survey of senior program managers across all broadcast entities and 
discussions with other program staff and outside parties, suggested a 
number of other effectiveness measures the Board could incorporate when 
developing measurable program objectives designed to support the plan's 
strategic goals.[Footnote 12] These measures include audience 
awareness; broadcast entity credibility; and a measure of VOA's ability 
to communicate a balanced and comprehensive projection of American 
thought, institutions, and policies so that audiences receive, 
understand, and retain this information.

Audience Awareness:

The strategic plan does not include a measure of audience awareness to 
answer a second key question of effectiveness: whether target audiences 
are even aware of U.S. international broadcasting programming available 
in their area. Board officials have stated that such measures would 
help the Board understand a key factor in audience share rates and what 
could be done to address audience share deficiencies. The Board could 
develop this measure since it already collects information on language 
service awareness levels in its audience research and in national 
surveys for internal use.

Broadcaster Credibility:

The strategic plan does not include a measure of broadcaster 
credibility, which can identify whether target audiences believe what 
they hear. Reaching a large listening or viewing audience is of little 
use if audiences largely discount the news and information portions of 
broadcasts. Our survey of senior program managers and discussions with 
BBG staff and outside groups all point to the possibility that U.S. 
broadcasters (VOA in particular) suffer from a credibility problem with 
foreign audiences, who may view VOA and other broadcasters as biased 
sources of information. InterMedia, the Board's audience research 
contractor, told the Board that it is working on a credibility index 
for another customer that could be adapted to meet the Board's needs 
which, when segmented by language service, would reveal whether there 
are significant perception problems among key target audiences. 
However, to develop this measure, the Board would need to add several 
questions to its national survey instruments.

Measure of VOA Mission Effectiveness:

Finally, the strategic plan does not include a measure of whether 
target audiences hear, understand, and retain information broadcast by 
VOA on American thought, institutions, and policies. The unique value-
added component of VOA's broadcasting mission is its focus on issues 
and information concerning the United States, our system of government, 
and the rationale behind U.S. policy decisions. Tracking and reporting 
these data are important to determining whether VOA is accomplishing 
its mission. InterMedia officials noted that developing a measure of 
this sort is feasible and requires developing appropriate quantitative 
and qualitative questions to include in the Board's ongoing research 
activities.

Plan Lacks Specifics on Implementation Strategies, Resource Needs, and 
Project Time Frames:

We found that each of the plan's program objectives lacked a detailed 
description of implementation strategies, resource needs, and project 
time frames. Typically, each program objective consists of an overview 
of the problem followed by a general assertion that operations must be 
improved. For example, the "action plan" for the accelerated use of 
television and the Internet is limited to the following statements:

* "Appropriate Television - VOA has seen significant audience impact in 
several key markets through television broadcasts--the Balkans, Iran, 
and Indonesia. We can and will do more with TV where market realities 
demand this and where resources permit. The first step is to cement the 
establishment of VOA-TV from the former Worldnet.

* Higher Quality Web Presence - We have seen spotty progress towards 
the goal of having all language services create high quality news-
oriented websites. Some are outstanding. The content of others is thin 
and visually uninteresting. Bottom line: We will ensure that all 
entities have world-class Internet presences.":

This level of planning begs key questions such as:

* What is the overall strategy for implementing the enhanced use of 
television and the Internet? Who will be responsible for implementing 
the component parts of the strategy? How much will it cost? How long 
will it take to implement?

* How will the Board manage workforce planning issues such as 
transitioning staff from radio-based skills to the skill set required 
to significantly augment the Board's multimedia operations?

* How will the long-planned merger of VOA Television and WorldNet 
impact the Board's strategic approach to television?

* How will the Middle East Television Network factor into the Board's 
plans and what are the resource, staffing, and training implications of 
this proposed network?

Answers to such questions will provide the Board, BBG managers, OMB, 
and the Congress with specific information needed to manage ongoing 
program implementation and assess progress against meaningful short-and 
long-term criteria. This level of planning also will reveal any 
potential gaps or inconsistencies in planned implementation steps 
across the Board's many program objectives.

Board Plans to Address Many Challenges, but Scope of Operations May 
Limit Its Impact:

The key strategic challenge the Board faces is how to achieve large 
audiences in priority markets while dealing with (1) a collection of 
outdated and noncompetitive language services, (2) a disparate 
organizational structure consisting of seven separate broadcast 
entities and a mix of federal agency and grantee organizations that are 
managed by a part-time Board of Governors, and (3) the resource 
challenge of broadcasting in 97 language services to more than 125 
broadcast markets worldwide. The plan does address the challenge of 
revamping its current broadcast operations by identifying a number of 
solutions to the competitive challenges the Board faces. It also 
provides a new organizational model for U.S. international broadcasting 
that stresses the need to view the broadcast efforts of the separate 
entities as part of a "single system" under the Board's direct control 
and authority. The Board has stated that it cannot sustain all its 
current broadcast operations and have the desired impact in high 
priority markets at the same time. Despite a clear articulation of U.S. 
international broadcasting's resource challenges, the Board and 
Congress have not been able to substantially reduce the total number of 
language services or a reported 55 percent overlap in VOA and surrogate 
language services.

Board Has Identified Solutions to Market Challenges:

The Board's strategic plan does an adequate job of identifying the 
market challenges for U.S. international broadcasters and potential 
solutions to these challenges. The task of reaching a significant 
audience today is a far different proposition than reaching an audience 
a decade ago. Priority markets have multiplied and media environments 
have advanced virtually everywhere with an explosion of local radio and 
television outlets that compete aggressively for audience share. 
Broadcast and computer technologies have made quantum leaps, with 
satellite television and the Internet becoming preferred information 
modes for millions. The Board has concluded that because many people 
can now pick and choose their information sources, U.S. international 
broadcast operations must be improved to remain competitive in a new 
media environment.

The Board's strategic plan includes a frank assessment of the market 
challenges that must be addressed to make U.S. international 
broadcasting more competitive. These challenges include:

* Branding and positioning. Language services lack a distinctive 
contemporary identity and a unique reason for listeners or viewers to 
tune in.

* Target audiences. Few language services have identified their target 
audience--a key first step in developing a broadcast strategy.

* Formats and programs. Many language services have outmoded formats 
and programs with an antiquated, even Cold War, sound and style.

* Delivery and placement. Three-quarters of transmitted hours have poor 
or fair signal quality, and affiliate broadcaster strategies have 
stressed quantity over quality.

* Marketing and promotion. Audience awareness levels are low across the 
world and audiences often do not know where to tune in or what to 
expect once they do.

* Technology. The Board is not maximizing the use of multimedia to 
reach audiences, stimulate real-time interaction, and cross-promote 
broadcast products.

These challenges are addressed by a number of proposed solutions in the 
form of strategic goals and program objectives listed in the plan. With 
regards to the marketing challenges, 12 of the 17 program objectives 
are designed to directly or indirectly overcome these challenges. For 
example, the Board's strategic goal of employing modern communication 
techniques and technologies is supported by the following program 
objectives:

* accelerate multimedia development and infuse more television and 
Internet into the mix;

* adopt modern radio principles and practices including the matching of 
program formats to target audiences;

* control the distribution channels that audiences use;

* go local in content and presence;

* tailor content to audiences; and:

* drive innovation and performance with research.

Full implementation of these and other solutions to market challenges 
in high priority markets will depend on available resources, which in 
turn will be driven in part by the Board's effectiveness in addressing 
its organizational and resource challenges.

Plan Proposes a "Single System" for Broadcasting and Increased 
Leadership for the Board:

The plan identifies a number of internal challenges or obstacles which, 
if not addressed and corrected, will hamper the Board's ability to 
effectively implement its new strategic approach to broadcasting. 
First, the Board believes that it needs to do more to consolidate and 
rationalize its organizational structure to better leverage existing 
resources and generate greater program impact in priority markets. As 
the strategic plan notes, "the diversity of the BBG--diverse 
organizations with different missions, different frameworks, and 
different constituencies--makes it a challenge to bring all the 
separate parts together in a more effective whole." Second, the Board 
believes that it must clarify the respective roles and responsibilities 
of the Board, the IBB, and the broadcast entities to ensure that a 
rational management process is in place and that internal 
communications flow in a logical manner.[Footnote 13]

The Board's response to these internal challenges is largely contained 
in the two program objectives listed under the strategic goal of 
designing a broadcast architecture for the 21st century. The first 
program objective is to create a unified broadcasting system by 
treating the component parts of U.S. international broadcasting as a 
single system. This is an important distinction since it places the 
Board in the position of actively managing resources across broadcast 
entities to achieve common broadcast goals. A good example of this 
strategy in action is Radio Farda, which draws on the unique content of 
VOA's Persian service and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Persian 
service to create a new broadcast product for the Iranian market. Board 
officials acknowledge that the new single system approach will take 
years to implement throughout the BBG and require hands-on management 
by the entire Board to ensure that resources are adequately managed 
across entities. Also, the Board's experience with implementing Radio 
Sawa suggests that it can be difficult to make disparate broadcast 
entities work toward a common purpose. For example, Board members and 
senior planners said they encountered significant difficulties 
attempting to work with VOA officials to launch Radio Sawa and there 
are now plans to constitute Radio Sawa as a separate grantee 
organization. While this move is understandable under the 
circumstances, it also contributes to the further "balkanization" of 
U.S. international broadcasting.

The second program objective consists of realigning the BBG's 
organizational structure. This objective highlights the need to 
reinforce the Board's role as CEO and to reaffirm the IBB's role as 
central provider of transmission and local placement services. The plan 
notes that by law the Board is the head of the agency with a host of 
nondelegable responsibilities including taking the lead role in shaping 
the BBG's overall strategic direction, setting expectations and 
standards, and creating the context for innovation and change. As it 
consolidates its role as the collective CEO for U.S. international 
broadcasting, the Board will seek to create better and stronger 
linkages among entities, uniting them in a common purpose and program. 
At the same time, the Board plans to assume the role of helping the 
broadcasting organizations develop radio formats to package and better 
present the broadcasters' content. According to the plan, this becomes 
a major responsibility, as professional formatting is vital to the 
BBG's competitiveness and effectiveness.

Plan Does Not Discuss Several Organizational Options:

We found significant support among BBG staff and outside experts we 
interviewed and surveyed for a select number of solutions not included 
in the Board's plan. However, these are complex issues that deserve 
detailed review and careful weighing of the pros and cons. Implementing 
these solutions is largely beyond the Board's control. However, the 
Board can play a key role in identifying and endorsing creative 
solutions for Congress to consider if the Board's planned solutions to 
organizational and leadership challenges falter and are ineffective. A 
list of these options is offered for informational purposes and as a 
reference point for the Board, OMB, and Congress in pursuing solutions 
to acknowledged operating challenges. (See app. II for relevant survey 
responses we received from senior program managers.) Table 3 summarizes 
the Board's planned action compared with these potential alternatives.

Table 3: Planned Actions and Additional Options:

Planned action: "Single system" approach to broadcasting; Potential 
alternatives: Consider whether U.S. international broadcasting should 
be consolidated into a single entity to streamline and rationalize 
operations. (See survey question 20.1.).

Planned action: Reinforce the Board's role as CEO; Potential 
alternatives: Consider whether a full-time CEO or Chief Operating 
Officer (COO) for international broadcasting is needed to manage day-
to-day operations that may put too great a stress on a part-time Board. 
In either case, it is presumed that the Board would have direct hire 
and fire authority over such a position.[A,B] (See survey question 
20.2.).

Planned action: Reinforce the IBB's central support role; Potential 
alternatives: Consider an alternative to the current support services 
arrangement giving VOA, Radio/TV Marti, and WorldNet the same 
flexibility as grantees to manage their nontransmission support 
services. Grantee organizations (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and 
Radio Free Asia) directly control most nontransmission support services 
such as affiliate relations, marketing, and computer services. In 
contrast, nontransmission support services for VOA, Radio/TV Marti, and 
WorldNet were largely consolidated within the IBB as part of the 1994 
International Broadcasting Act. (See survey question 4.3.).

Planned action: No parallel action; Potential alternatives: Consider 
whether VOA, the IBB, and Radio/TV Marti should be reconstituted as 
grantees to place them on the same footing as the surrogate 
broadcasters, who enjoy more liberal workforce rules and fewer 
restrictions. It has been argued that the flexible environment grantees 
have is more conducive to a fast-paced business such as broadcasting. 
(See survey questions 20.8 and 20.9.).

Source: GAO analysis.

[A] Certain Board members and senior BBG planners view this option as 
problematic given the perception that attracting talented individuals 
to serve on the Board is dependent, in part, on the Board having a 
central and unambiguous role in managing the operations of U.S. 
international broadcasting.

[B] The utility of appointing federal agency COOs was recently explored 
at a roundtable of senior private and public sector executives 
sponsored by GAO. See U.S. General Accounting Office, Highlights of a 
GAO Roundtable: The Chief Operating Officer Concept: A Potential 
Strategy to Address Federal Governance Challenges, GAO-03-192SP 
(Washington, D.C.: Oct. 4, 2002).

[End of table]

Plan Does Not Directly Address the Board's Scope of Operations:

The Board has concluded that if U.S. international broadcasting is to 
become a vital component of U.S. foreign policy, it must focus on a 
clear set of broadcast priorities. Trying to do too much at the same 
time fractures this focus, extends the span of control beyond 
management capabilities, and siphons off precious resources. The Board 
has determined that current efforts to support its broadcast languages 
are "unsustainable" with current resources given its desire to increase 
impact in high priority markets. Currently, the Board broadcasts in 66 
languages, through 97 language services (resulting from a 55 percent 
overlap between VOA and surrogate language services) to more than 125 
markets worldwide. The plan notes, "it is a daunting challenge to 
obtain the impact the Board desires across all its language services 
given what is essential to spend in high priority services.":

Despite this recognition, the plan fails to answer such questions as, 
when is it appropriate to broadcast VOA and surrogate programming in 
the same language, and what level of duplication in roles and target 
audiences should be allowed between VOA and surrogate broadcasters. 
These types of questions have been raised before. For example, in our 
September 1996 review of options for addressing possible budget 
reductions at the U.S. Information Agency, we concluded that any 
substantial reduction in funding for U.S. international broadcasting 
would require major changes in the number of language services and 
broadcast hours.[Footnote 14] Our report noted that the BBG planned to 
extensively review its language services to determine their continued 
need and effectiveness. Our September 2000 report on U.S. international 
broadcasting noted that the Board concluded it was essential to revisit 
the issue of broadcast overlap between VOA and the surrogate services 
in light of evolving foreign policy, geopolitical, and budget realities 
in the new century.[Footnote 15] Finally, the Board considered the 
issue of role and target audience duplication among VOA and surrogate 
broadcasts in a July 2000 language service analysis, which sought to 
identify where broadcast services shared similar roles (that is, to 
supply international/regional news, local news, information on American 
policies and perspectives, etc.) and the same target audiences (that 
is, elites, mass, youth, women, and diaspora). This analysis confirmed 
that surrogate broadcasters, consistent with their mission, carry 
substantially more local content than VOA. Likewise, the analysis 
confirmed that VOA alone provides news and information on what the 
Board labeled the "American political perspective." However, the 
Board's analysis also revealed that a significant degree of overlap 
existed in other content areas (such as "political/democracy building") 
and in target audiences between VOA and the surrogates.

Reducing the Number of Language Services and Broadcast Overlap Has 
Broad Support:

Our survey of senior program managers revealed that the majority 
supported significantly reducing the total number of language services 
and the overlap in services between VOA and the surrogate 
broadcasters.[Footnote 16] Eighteen of 24 respondents said that too 
many language services are offered, and when asked how many countries 
should have more than one U.S. international broadcaster providing 
service in the same language, 23 of 28 respondents said this should 
occur in only a few countries or no countries at all. Finally, when we 
asked respondents what impact a significant reduction in language 
services (for the purpose of reprogramming funds to higher priority 
services) would have, 18 of 28 respondents said that this would have a 
generally positive to highly positive impact.

The BBG's annual language service review process addresses the need to 
delete or add languages. The process prioritizes individual language 
services based on such factors as U.S. strategic interests, political 
freedom, and press freedom data. Such assessments have been used in an 
attempt to shift the focus of U.S. international broadcasting away from 
central and eastern Europe to allow greater emphasis on Russia and 
Eurasia; central and South Asia; China and east Asia; Africa; and 
selected countries in our hemisphere such as Colombia, Cuba, and Haiti. 
This system has been used to re-deploy resources within the BBG. For 
example, the Board has reallocated more than $9 million through the 
elimination or reduction of language services since its first language 
service review in January 2000. In total, the Board has eliminated 3 
language services[Footnote 17] and reduced the 
scope-of-operations of another 25 services since January 2000.[Footnote 
18] In terms of the total number of language services, the Board had 91 
language services when it concluded its first language service review 
and 97 language services at the conclusion of this year's review. 
Congress has contributed to this situation by authorizing additional 
language services over the years. However, the Board, through its 
required annual language service review and strategic plan, is 
responsible for analyzing, recommending, and implementing a more 
efficient and economical scope of operations for U.S. international 
broadcasting.

Conclusions:

The Broadcasting Board of Governors' strategic plan embodies, defines, 
and guides the Board's new approach to U.S. international broadcasting, 
which aims to dramatically increase the size of listening and viewing 
audiences in markets of U.S. strategic interest while focusing on the 
war on terrorism. Early initiatives such as Radio Sawa, Radio Free 
Afghanistan, and Radio Farda represent the first wave of projects 
incorporating, to varying degrees, the market-driven techniques on 
which the Board's new approach to broadcasting are based. Effective 
implementation of the Board's new approach to broadcasting rests, in 
part, on a rigorous plan that reflects the Board's best strategic 
thinking on a host of critical issues. However, the Board's plan lacks 
measurable program objectives, detailed implementation strategies, 
resource needs, and project time frames. We identified a number of key 
areas that could provide a starting point for developing multiyear 
program objectives that focus on the Board's actual effectiveness. 
These measures include audience size by language service, audience 
awareness, broadcaster credibility, and whether VOA effectively 
presents information about U.S. thought, institutions, and policies to 
target audiences. Implementation of these and other program objectives 
could be tracked through a related set of performance goals and 
indicators in the Board's annual performance plan. The Board has 
identified a number of market and internal challenges and proposed 
solutions to address them. If the Board falters in its efforts to 
correct some significant organizational challenges, a number of 
alternative solutions do exist. Finally, the Board needs to evaluate 
how many language services it can effectively carry and what level of 
overlap and duplication in VOA and surrogate broadcast services is 
appropriate. Resolving these key questions will have significant 
resource implications for the Board and its ability to reach large 
audiences in markets of priority interest to the United States.

Recommendations for Executive Action:

To improve overall management of U.S. international broadcast 
operations and maximize their impact on U.S. public diplomacy efforts, 
we recommend that the Chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors:

* revise the BBG's 5-year strategic plan to include measurable program 
objectives, implementation strategies, resource requirements, and 
project time frames;

* include audience size, audience awareness, broadcaster credibility, 
and VOA mission effectiveness as measurable program objectives in the 
strategic plan;

* revise the BBG's annual performance plan to include performance goals 
and indicators that track the Board's progress in implementing the 
multiyear program objectives established in the Board's revised 
strategic plan; and:

* revise the Board's strategic plan to include a clear vision of the 
Board's intended scope-of-operations and the appropriate level of 
overlap and duplication between VOA and surrogate language services.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:

The Broadcasting Board of Governors provided written comments on a 
draft of this report. The Board stated that overall our report is fair 
and accurate and it largely concurred with our report recommendations. 
The Board noted that it intends to create a new strategic goal (that 
is, maximizing impact in priority areas) and recast the plan's seven 
existing strategic goals as operational goals that would support the 
Board's single strategic goal. These operational goals would be 
descriptive in nature and generally not measured directly. However, the 
Board intends to develop measurable multiyear program objectives and 
related performance indicators under its new strategic goal that will 
be tracked on an annual basis through the BBG's performance plan. The 
Board's response notes that possible performance indicators include 
audience reach, share, awareness, credibility, programming quality, 
mission, added-value, and delivery. Finally, the Board noted that it is 
currently undertaking an in-depth assessment of the utility and 
practicality of integrating overlapping language services and expects 
to include this assessment in its fiscal year 2005 budget submission. 
We believe these planned actions are significant and if fully 
implemented should materially improve the Board's performance 
management process and provide OMB and Congress with more meaningful 
data on the actual impact of Board activities.

The comments provided by the Board are reprinted in appendix IV. The 
Board also provided technical comments which we have incorporated in 
the report as appropriate.

Scope and Methodology:

To obtain comparative information on all our objectives, we conducted 
fieldwork in the United Kingdom and Germany. We met with foreign 
ministry officials in London and Berlin to discuss their approaches to 
public diplomacy. We also met with broadcasting officials from the 
British Broadcasting Corporation in London and Deutsche Welle officials 
in Cologne and Berlin to discuss their respective approaches to 
international broadcasting.

To examine the status of the BBG's new strategic approach, we conducted 
interviews with Board members and senior managers from the broadcast 
entities including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty officials in Prague. 
We also reviewed the Board's new 5-year strategic plan titled "Marrying 
the Mission to the Market" as well as other agency documentation, 
including entity mission statements and budget requests.

To identify how the Board plans to measure the effectiveness of its new 
strategic approach, we reviewed current performance management 
documentation, such as language service and program review documents, 
audience research summaries, and annual performance plans and reports. 
We also met with Board officials and with several private sector 
audience research firms to discuss a range of performance management 
and measurement issues.

To obtain information on various challenges the Board faces in 
executing its new strategy, and to identify program options for 
overcoming key challenges, we administered a survey to 34 senior 
program managers across the 5 broadcast entities in existence at the 
time our survey was implemented. We also conducted interviews with 
Board members and the Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public 
Affairs at the Department of State.

We conducted our work from May 2002 through April 2003 in accordance 
with generally accepted government auditing standards.

We are sending copies of this report to other interested members of 
Congress, the Chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, and the 
Secretary of State. We will also make copies available to other parties 
upon request. In addition, this report will be available at no charge 
on the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please 
contact me on (202) 512-4128. Other GAO contacts and staff 
acknowledgments are listed in appendix V.

Jess T. Ford 
Director, 
International Affairs and Trade:

Signed by Jess T. Ford: 

[End of section]

Appendixes:

Appendix I: Challenges Facing U.S. International Broadcasting:

The Board's strategic plan provides both a candid assessment of the 
challenges facing U.S. international broadcasting and a series of 
proposed solutions to address these challenges in the form of strategic 
goals and related program objectives. Table 4 is an overview of each 
challenge described in the Board's strategic plan. Table 5 is a list of 
the proposed solutions the Board identified.

Table 4: Board-Identified Challenges:

Challenge: Marketing: 

Challenge: Branding and positioning; Description from strategic plan: 
Many BBG broadcasters lack a distinctive contemporary identity.

Challenge: Target audiences; Description from strategic plan: 
Identifying a target audience is essential to a broadcasting strategy-
-yet only a few BBG language services have set targets.

Challenge: Formats and programs; Description from strategic plan: The 
formats and programs of too many BBG language services are outmoded.

Challenge: Delivery and placement; Description from strategic plan: 
Broadcasts are frequently hampered by poor audibility. Placement, where 
available, is sometimes hindered by poor partner station choices with 
poor broadcast times.

Challenge: Marketing and promotion; Description from strategic plan: 
Audience awareness of BBG programs is generally low across the world.

Challenge: Technology; Description from strategic plan: The BBG must 
use multimedia to its advantage. While radio is the backbone, TV is 
usually dominant and there has been substantial growth in Internet use 
in many markets.

Challenge: Internal:

Challenge: Consolidate and rationalize the overall enterprise; 
Description from strategic plan: The diversity of the BBG--
organizations with different missions, different frameworks, and 
different constituencies--makes it hard to bring all the separate parts 
together into a more effective whole. Fifty-five percent of VOA's 
language services overlap with the surrogates, presenting a chronic 
resource allocation challenge for the Board.

Challenge: Roles and responsibilities; Description from strategic plan: 
Since its inception, the Board has worked to sort out the respective 
roles and responsibilities of the BBG, the IBB, and the broadcasters.

Challenge: Resource allocation; Description from strategic plan: 
Appropriate performance measures are needed to establish a direct link 
between performance and budget. Language service review has made great 
strides in this area for the broadcast language services; however, the 
Board now needs to broaden this exercise to encompass support elements 
as well.

Challenge: New requirements to ensure market competitiveness; 
Description from strategic plan: The Board will need substantial new 
budget outlays to fund a variety of requirements including the 
strengthening of multimedia programming, conducting research, carrying 
out marketing and promotion efforts, and securing language-qualified 
staff.

Challenge: Journalistically independent, yet a government agency; 
Description from strategic plan: The BBG must work with other federal 
agencies to ensure the level of diplomatic and other types of support 
needed to function effectively.

Source: BBG strategic plan.

[End of table]

Table 5: Proposed SolutionsStrategic Goals and Objectives:

Goal I - Design a broadcasting architecture for the future.: * Create a 
worldwide U.S. international broadcasting system.; * Realign the BBG 
organizational structure.

Goal II -Expand the U.S. international broadcasting system through 
regional networks and single-country priority initiatives.

Goal II - Design a broadcasting architecture for the future.: * Launch 
the Middle East Radio Network and make it a success.; * Harmonize Radio 
Free Afghanistan and VOA into the Afghanistan Radio Network.; * Pioneer 
anti-terrorism broadcasting.; * Reach the two continental giants: 
Russia and China.

Goal III - Employ modern communication techniques and technologies.

* Accelerate multimedia development and infuse more television and 
Internet into the mix.; * Adopt modern radio principles and practices 
such as matching program formats to target audiences.; * Control the 
distribution channels that audiences use.; * Go local in content and 
presence.; * Tailor content to the audience.; * Drive innovation and 
performance with research.

Goal IV - 
Preserve our most precious commodity--credibility--and ensure overall 
programming excellence.

* Maintain the firewall.[A]; * Update and enforce journalism 
standards.; * Perform periodic program reviews of all language services.

Goal V - Revitalize "Telling America's Story" to the world.

* Be a 
model of a free press and democracy in action.; * Concentrate on those 
aspects of America that research indicates are of interest to target 
audiences.; * Present targeted editorials that are relevant to local 
and regional concerns.; * Use formats, presentation techniques, and on-
air presence that will appeal to audiences.; * Maximize interactive use 
of the Internet as a ready reference source for presidential speeches 
and other vital documents.

Goal VI - Shore up surge capacity.

* Upgrade 
existing shortwave transmitter and support systems to ensure backbone 
of U.S. surge capability.; * Develop a rapid-response capability--low 
power, portable AM and FM.

Goal VII - Ensure broad federal support.

* No associated program objective.

Source: BBG strategic plan.

[A] The term "firewall" refers to the Board's independent status in 
separating and protecting the professional independence and integrity 
of U.S. international broadcast elements from the policy-making 
institutions in the U.S. government's foreign affairs community.

[End of table]

[End of section]

Appendix II: Survey Development:

To determine senior managers' views of current operations, obtain 
information on the challenges associated with U.S. international 
broadcasting, and obtain information on the expected impacts of the 
BBG's new "Marrying the Mission to the Market" initiative, we conducted 
a survey of these managers. Our survey questionnaire was administered 
from January 15 to March 11, 2003, to the directors, program-related 
managers, and regional language chiefs at the five BBG broadcasting 
entities in existence at the time our survey was implemented.

The questionnaire was developed between September 2002 and January 2003 
by social science survey specialists and other individuals who were 
knowledgeable about international broadcasting issues. In late October, 
we obtained an external expert review of the questionnaire from 
InterMedia, a private consulting group that conducts research into 
international broadcasting issues. We also obtained a series of 
comments and feedback from key Board planners and staff in November and 
December 2002.

We pretested the questionnaire in December 2002 with four senior 
managers of BBG broadcasting entities to ensure that the questionnaire 
was clear, unambiguous, and unbiased. Initially, we had considered 
surveying a broader section of managers of BBG broadcasting entities, 
such as language service chiefs and managers of support services. 
However, after conducting the pretests, we concluded that our questions 
were appropriate only for directors, program-related managers, and 
regional language chiefs. In addition, we decided that it would be 
inappropriate to survey members of the Board of Governors because many 
of the questions asked about decisions and strategies for which they 
were directly responsible.

We developed our study population of top managers, program-related 
managers, and regional language chiefs based on information that the 
BBG provided and input from BBG management. In those instances where 
managers had taken office during or after the time period to be 
evaluated in our survey (Oct. 1, 2001, through Sept. 30, 2002), we also 
surveyed their predecessors. In all, we sent the survey to the 34 
individuals we identified as our study population and received 30 
responses, resulting in an 88 percent response rate. All data from the 
completed surveys were double-keyed and verified during data entry.

The results of our closed-ended questions to our survey are provided in 
appendix III.

[End of section]

Appendix III: Survey of Program Managers of U.S. International 
Broadcasting Entities:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

[End of section]

Appendix IV Comments from the Broadcasting Board of Governors:

BROADCASTING BOARD OF GOVERNORS UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:

KENNETH Y. TOMLINSON Chairman:

June 27, 2003:

Mr. Jess T. Ford 
Associate Director 
International relations and Trade Issues 
General Accounting Office Washington, D.C. 20548:

Dear Mr. Ford:

Thank you for the opportunity to review your draft report, "U.S. 
International Broadcasting, New Strategic Approach Focuses on Reaching 
Large Audiences but Lacks Measurable Program Objectives." 
In responding to it, let me first note that we have been 
impressed by the professionalism and the constructive spirit with 
which the GAO conducted this review. We believe that as the 
Broadcasting Board of Governors reshapes U.S. international 
broadcasting to meet the quickly 
changing needs of the 21st century and specifically, needs 
imposed by the War on Terror, we have both a proud story to tell and 
room to improve. The draft report captures this. I am sure this 
organization will benefit from having gone through 
the review and from the openness that both sides displayed.

Overall, we consider the report to be fair and accurate in its 
description of the Board's strategic initiatives. We do, however, find 
it somewhat unbalanced in its seeming over-emphasis on criticism of the 
Strategic Plan's degree of conformance to the documentation norms of 
the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA). Ours is a 
journalistic organization. We believe in the power of clear speaking, 
and that is what the BBG Strategic Plan does. The document shows where 
we want to go and why and how we will get there. More detailed comments 
on these points are attached.

We appreciate that GAO has spelled out some options for future 
directions. To the report's suggestions on how best to manage day-to-
day operations in U.S. international broadcasting, we would add that 
the Board needs to retain its own staff and chief of staff to ensure 
the integrity of its oversight role.

We concur in varying degrees with GAO's recommendations:

1) "Revise the BBG's 5 -year strategic plan to include measurable 
program objectives, implementation strategies, resource requirements 
and project time frames. ":

Comments: Concur, with reservations. Our strategic plan maps out the 
future directions of a young agency that is largely remaking itself to 
meet rapidly changing conditions overseas. The variables with which we 
must contend are many and often unpredictable. As a result, our 
document is a framework and in GPRA terms it does not always have 
numerical specificity. Yet its thrust is clear. That said, we believe 
that we can make our Strategic Plan GPRA-compliant by subordinating the 
existing goals to a single restated Strategic Goal, with supporting 
effectiveness measures, and linking these to the performance plan. 
Developing and fine-tuning these new measures will take some time, but 
the general idea of what we envision is spelled out in Appendix B.

To the extent that the constantly changing requirements of 
international conditions and the need to reallocate funds from existing 
programs to fund new higher priorities permit, we will codify this in 
the strategic plan. We remind that unlike virtually every other federal 
agency, the automatic corrective that governs our strategic planning 
process is the annual language review, mandated by law. It is heavily 
research-driven. (Appendix A):

2) "Include audience size, audience awareness, broadcaster credibility 
and VOA mission effectiveness as measurable program objectives in the 
strategic plan. ":

Comments: Concur in the main. Audience size will be inculcated into the 
plan as one of a number of effectiveness measures which support a new 
overarching Strategic Goal - "Maximize impact in priority areas with 
high-quality programming consistent with mission." As we have noted 
elsewhere in this response, credibility and VOA mission effectiveness 
are integral components of the existing programming quality performance 
indicator in the annual performance plan. We will make this more 
explicit to the readers of the strategic and annual plans (Appendix A). 
We will examine audience awareness as a possible indicator, but we 
believe that by itself it is not directly a broadcasting impact 
measure, but rather a subordinate outcome indicator for marketing and 
program placement operations. It may be most useful as part of a ratio. 
(Appendix B) Broadcaster credibility and VOA mission effectiveness will 
be looked at carefully. They make sense on their face, but the 
difficulty is in getting reliable data on which to base them.

3) "Revise the BBG's annual performance plan to include performance 
goals and indicators that track the Board's progress in implementing 
the multiyear program objectives established in the Board's revised 
strategic plan. ":

Comments: Concur.

4) "Revise the Board's strategic plan to include a clear vision of the 
Board's intended scope of operations regarding the total number of 
language services and the appropriate level of overlap and duplication 
between VOA and surrogate language services. ":

Comments: Concur, but with clarifications. First, the Board does not 
accept the premise that there are "duplicate" services. While VOA and 
RFE/RL or RFA broadcast in some of the same languages (i.e., they 
overlap), the missions and program philosophies remain distinct. 
Certainly there are degrees of separation, and combining services in 
some cases makes sense. Not every market requires the same mix of 
services. The Strategic Plan states clearly the Board's philosophy of 
creating single-country and regional networks, and combining existing 
overlap services in ways that will increase the overall impact of each 
("making 2+2=5"). The Board is currently undertaking an in-depth 
assessment of the utility/practicality of integrating current overlap 
language services and expects to forward the findings of this 
assessment as part of the FY 2005 budget submission. We anticipate that 
whatever the results might be, actual implementation would be phased in 
over a period of up to two years. That said, we must note that it is 
impractical to state in the Strategic Plan a target total number of 
language services. There is no fixed number, since international 
conditions, legislative mandates, and resultant language priorities 
change each year. The Board believes that the current examination, 
described above, together with the annual language review process and 
its engine, a freshly produced, research-driven set of broadcast 
priorities, will best guide.

We also have some specific comments on and corrections to the Report. 
Please consider our full response.

Again, thank you for the opportunity to comment. Please let me know if 
we can provide any further information.

Sincerely,

Kenneth Y. Tomlinson 
Chairman:

Signed by Kenneth Y. Tomlinson: 

Attachment: Comments on GAO Draft Report and Notes on Text Appendix A: 
Restated Strategic and Operational Goals:

Appendix B: Developing Further Indicators To Measure The Impact Of U.S. 
International Broadcasting:

Appendix C: Brief Description of the BBG Programming Quality Index:

[End of section]

Appendix V: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments:

GAO Contact:

Diana Glod (202) 512-8945.

Acknowledgments:

In addition to the person named above, Michael ten Kate, Melissa 
Pickworth, and Janey Cohen made key contributions to this report. 
Martin De Alteriis and Ernie Jackson also provided technical 
assistance.

(320159):

:

FOOTNOTES

[1] Congress created the BBG when it passed the United States 
International Broadcasting Act of 1994 (title III of P.L. 103-236), 
which sought to reorganize and consolidate U.S. international 
broadcasting efforts in light of the end of the Cold War and 
administrative efforts to meet deficit reduction targets. The Board is 
composed of nine voting members. Eight members are appointed by the 
President and confirmed by the Senate for 3-year terms. The ninth 
member of the Board is the Secretary of State. Under the Foreign 
Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998 (P.L. 105-277), the BBG 
was removed from the U.S. Information Agency and established as an 
independent entity.

[2] The IBB currently provides transmission services to all U.S. 
broadcast operations. It also provides management oversight and support 
services such as audience research and marketing to VOA, WorldNet 
Television, and Radio/TV Marti.

[3] VOA also serves as a surrogate broadcaster in information-deprived 
countries in Africa since Congress has not established a separate 
surrogate entity for this region.

[4] One of the Board's key objectives is to provide support to the war 
on terrorism through anti-terrorism broadcasting. The Board views 
recent initiatives in the Middle East, such as Radio Sawa, as examples 
of its new approach and as a major initiative supporting the war on 
terrorism.

[5] OMB guidance notes that agency strategic plans may include 
multiyear strategic goals that are not subject to direct measurement. 
However, these goals must be supported by measurable program objectives 
that provide a long-term basis for assessing whether an agency's 
strategic goals are being met. Annual progress toward achieving agency 
program objectives should be tracked through the performance goals and 
indicators in an agency's performance plan under the Government 
Performance and Results Act. See Circular No. A-11, Part 6, Preparation 
and Submission of Strategic Plans, Annual Performance Plans, and Annual 
Program Performance Reports; Office of Management and Budget 
(Washington, D.C.: June 2002).

[6] These two components of the Board's performance management system 
were addressed in detail in our last report on U.S. international 
broadcasting. U.S. General Accounting Office, U.S. International 
Broadcasting: Strategic Planning and Performance Management System 
Could be Improved, GAO/NSIAD-00-222 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 27, 2000).

[7] These languages fall in the Near East Asia and South Asia region 
targeted for evaluation as part of OMB's new Program Assessment Rating 
Tool (PART) exercise, which is designed to support the budget and 
performance integration component of the President's Management Agenda. 
Under the PART process, approximately 20 percent of agency programs 
were supposed to be covered during the formulation of the fiscal year 
2004 budget, with other programs to be annually added to the assessment 
in future years.

[8] Our observations on these missing elements are mirrored in OMB's 
summary report on this year's implementation of the Program Assessment 
Rating Tool. OMB's report in the President's fiscal year 2004 budget 
request notes that "the [BBG] program scored poorly in strategic 
planning, primarily because the long-term and annual goals are vague 
and do not include time frames and measurable targets."

[9] These findings mirror several of the observations we made in GAO/
NSIAD-00-222. 

[10] We recently reported that a "program logic model" can help 
information dissemination agencies systematically identify their 
program activities, inputs, outputs, outcomes, and program impact. By 
specifying what is expected at each step, a logic model can help 
agencies define the most appropriate set of program goals and measures. 
As such, the model could be used by the Board as a tool to help prepare 
its next iteration of the strategic plan. See U.S. General Accounting 
Office, Program Evaluation: Strategies for Assessing How Information 
Dissemination Contributes to Agency Goals, GAO-02-923 (Washington, 
D.C.: Sept. 30, 2002).

[11] See appendix I for a list of the Board's strategic goals and 
program objectives.

[12] These measures represent a starting point, since each strategic 
goal in the plan needs to be supported by measurable program 
objectives. Once strategic goals are lined up with measurable program 
objectives, a related set of performance goals and indicators should be 
included in the Board's performance plan to track annual progress 
toward implementing the plan's program objectives.

[13] The Board's concerns over organizational and management issues 
mirror the results of a retreat of senior BBG managers held in July 
2001, which served as a springboard for the development of the Board's 
strategic plan. The retreat represented a "no holds barred" look at 
current activities and future operations. One retreat exercise focused 
on identifying the key "restrainers" blocking the Board from moving 
toward a future vision for U.S. international broadcasting as 
articulated by the group. A tabulation of votes revealed that senior 
managers believed that a "flawed BBG organizational structure" and 
"very poor internal communications" were the two top restrainers the 
Board faces.

[14] See U.S. General Accounting Office, U.S. Information Agency: 
Options for Addressing Possible Budget Reductions, GAO/NSIAD-96-179 
(Washington, D.C.: Sept. 23, 1996).

[15] See GAO/NSIAD-00-222.

[16] We did not ask program managers for their views on the duplication 
of roles and target audiences among broadcast entities since this issue 
surfaced after our survey was released.

[17] VOA Portuguese to Brazil was eliminated as a direct result of 
language service review. VOA Arabic and Radio Free Europe/Radio 
Liberty's Persian service were eventually eliminated as the result of 
decisions made during language service review and were replaced by 
Radio Sawa and Radio Farda, respectively.

[18] Cutting language services can be challenging due to congressional 
concerns that the proposed elimination or reduction of language 
services is not supported by a clear rationale. For example, at OMB's 
direction, the Board's fiscal year 2004 budget request was reduced by 
$8.8 million to reflect the proposed elimination of broadcasts in nine 
foreign languages assessed as low priority/low impact services in 
connection with the Board's 2001/2002 language service review. However, 
Senator Lugar, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has 
expressed the view that the U.S. should not withdraw broadcasting 
services in certain countries until there is assurance of a free and 
fair press in those countries. In this regard, that Committee has 
approved S.925 which contains a provision that would prohibit the BBG 
from eliminating the foreign language broadcasts proposed for 
elimination in the BBG's fiscal year 2004 budget request. 

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