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" ! COMMITTEE PRINT 

111TH CONGRESS

2d Session 

S. PRT. 

2010

111–49 

U.S. INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING: 

—IS ANYBODY LISTENING?— 

KEEPING THE U.S. CONNECTED 

A REPORT 

TO THE MEMBERS 

OF THE 

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JUNE 9, 2010 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations 

Available via World Wide Web: 

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html 


seneagle
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS 

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut 

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin 

BARBARA BOXER, California 

ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania 

JIM WEBB, Virginia 

JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire 

EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware 

KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York 

RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana 

BOB CORKER, Tennessee 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia 

JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho 

JIM DEMINT, South Carolina 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming 

ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma 

FRANK G. LOWENSTEIN, Staff Director 

KENNETH A. MYERS, JR., Republican Staff Director 

(II)

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Letter of Transmittal ............................................................................................... v 

Executive Summary ................................................................................................. 1 

Findings and Recommendations ............................................................................. 2 

Introduction .............................................................................................................. 4 

The Broadcasting Board of Governors: The ‘‘Firewall’’ Has Become the ‘‘Football’’ ....................................................................................................................... 8

Russia—Slowly Strangling the Media ................................................................... 10 

Iran—Tough on Journalists and Technology ......................................................... 15 

China—Ever Expanding, and Now in the USA .................................................... 20 

Alhurra TV/Radio Sawa—Finding and Keeping an Audience ............................. 23 

Marketing—A Necessary Component and Cost to Reach New Audiences .......... 31 

The Competition—Broadcasting Throughout the USA ........................................ 35 

Short Wave—Last Gasp or the Final Frontier ...................................................... 36 

APPENDIXES

Appendix A.—Country-by-Country Analysis of the BBG Products ..................... 43 

Appendix B.—BBG Broadcast Languages ............................................................. 75 

Appendix C.—Broadcasting Board of Governors Entity Heads ........................... 77 

Appendix D.—VOA Persian News Network Schedule (as of 3/30/10) ................. 81 

Appendix E.—Editorials Relating to BBG ............................................................. 83 

Appendix F.—Recent State Department Office of the Inspector General (OIG) 

and Government Accountability Office (GAO) Reports on the BBG ................ 87 

Appendix G.—Chinese Media Outlets Working in the United States ................. 91 

Appendix H.—Alhurra Schedule ............................................................................ 93 

Appendix I.—BBG/IBB Satellite Coverage (Affiliate/Direct ot Home) ................ 97 

(III)

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL 

UNITED STATES SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, 

Washington, DC, June 9, 2010. 

DEAR COLLEAGUES: A key component of any nation’s public diplomacy effort is its ability to communicate with the rest of the 

world—either through people-to-people initiatives or through communications such as press briefings and broadcasting. Modern-day 

U.S. broadcasting began with the advent of the Voice of America 

during World War II, beamed around the world via Short Wave 

radio to dissidents, underground operatives as well as our allies. 

The intervening years have resulted in a plethora of new forms of 

connecting not only with those living in authoritarian regimes but 

with the rest of the world as well—from FM radio to the latest uses 

of social media tools available on the Internet. 

In addition to multiple commercial and other foreign government 

broadcasters competing with U.S. efforts, with different forms of 

media have also come different methods of repressing it. Some nations completely block American broadcasting efforts by jamming 

our radio broadcasts, satellite TV or Internet programming, while 

others imprison, torture, or kill both local and international journalists. 

Tasked with ensuring the U.S. message gets through is the 

Broadcasting Board of Governors. The Board oversees the operations of the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 

Radio Free Asia, Middle East Broadcasting Network and the Office 

of Cuba Broadcasting, which together broadcast in some 60 languages through radio, TV and the Internet. The Board consists of 

eight members nominated by the President (four Republicans and 

four Democrats) with the Secretary of State as the ninth member. 

Congress originally established the Board in the mid-1990s to ensure our broadcasting operations were free from political pressures 

from either end of Pennsylvania Avenue. After 15 years, however, 

it has become clear that the BBG, rather than functioning as a political ‘‘firewall,’’ has become a political ‘‘football’’ as Board membership nominations have become enmeshed and blocked due to partisan politics. The Board has not been fully staffed since 2004, and 

the chairmanship has been vacant since 2008. A consequence of 

this uncertainty in leadership and direction, not surprisingly, is 

that the BBG has consistently ranked at the very bottom in surveys of federal employees’ workplace satisfaction. Yet the need for 

robust leadership has never been greater. 

(V) 

vi 

Thus, it is my hope that, by the time this report is printed, the 

new Chairman and the other seven members of the Board, nominated some 7 months ago in November 2009, will have been confirmed by the Senate. Broadcasting issues related to Russia, Iran, 

China, Zimbabwe, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela, where regimes do all they can to prevent our broadcasts from getting 

through, all demand immediate attention, as does a critical look at 

our Middle East broadcasting, where we are struggling for market 

share in a media market that only grows more crowded by the day. 

With this in mind, I asked the Foreign Relations Committee staff 

under the leadership of Senior Professional Staff Member Paul 

Foldi to prepare the following report based on travels and study of 

these vital matters. The report addresses both the Board’s staffing 

difficulties, as well as the key issues and countries of concern that 

will confront the new Board when they are in place. Staff have consulted widely with experts inside and outside the government, 

former officials, public diplomacy experts in Washington and 

around the globe, as well as bloggers, journalists and academicians. 

As the title of the report suggests, we must not only work harder 

at gaining broader audiences for our programs, we also face fierce 

competition to keep our listeners, viewers and readers engaged. 

This is the first of several reports I have asked Mr. Foldi to initiate 

this year addressing major Public Diplomacy issues, and I hope you 

will find it valuable as we address these concerns. 

Sincerely, 

RICHARD G. LUGAR, Ranking Member. 

(1) 

1 ‘‘Surrogates’’ is the name given to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (founded in 1949), the 

Office of Cuba Broadcasting (1985), Radio Free Asia (1996) and Middle East Broadcasting Network (2004) that the BBG oversees. The Voice of America was tasked by Congress in Public 

Law 94–350 to ‘‘represent America, not any single segment of American society, and [VOA] will 

therefore present a balanced and comprehensive projection of significant American thought and 

institutions (and) will present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively.’’ Surrogates are designed to provide the listeners in countries that have limited press freedoms with 

the news from inside their own countries and regions. Governments of the nations receiving 

these transmissions are thus very often hostile to this information and often spend millions of 

dollars trying to block or jam surrogate radio/TV and Internet. 

U.S. INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING 

—IS ANYBODY LISTENING?— 

KEEPING THE U.S. CONNECTED 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

American Public Diplomacy has always addressed two audiences. 

One audience views the United States positively, as a democracy 

based on the free flow of information, the freedom of expression, 

civic discourse and active citizen participation in government. This 

group will more often than not be supportive of U.S. actions and 

initiatives, or at least give us the benefit of the doubt. Members of 

the second group believe that these strengths are, instead, weaknesses and are predisposed to assume the worst about America; 

they reject—or worse, attack—us as a result. Successful Public Diplomacy (PD) keeps the first group engaged and increases its numbers while reducing the size and impact of the second. Impacting 

both groups are not only the actions, images and words of our own 

Nation, but fierce competition from other nations whose own interests may or may not agree with our own. One of our major tools 

for connecting with these audiences is through people-to-people exchanges; another is international broadcasting. 

Once thought of only in terms of short-wave radio broadcasts to 

dissidents huddled late-night over their radios, recent technological 

advancements and improving standards of living have seen a virtual explosion of other communication outlets, from the greater use 

of FM radio to television, the Internet, social media and cell phone 

technology. All this has, on the one hand, greatly expanded the potential audience, but on the other greatly strained our broadcasters’ ability and budgets to reach them. 

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) was created by Congress in 1994 to oversee the operations of the Voice of America and 

the so-called surrogate stations: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 

Radio Free Asia, Radio/TV Marti, Radio Sawa and Alhurra TV.1

The first Board was sworn in on August 11, 1995, with four Republican and four Democratic Governors and the Secretary of State as 

the ninth member. However, since 1995, the Board has only been 

fully staffed for 6 of the subsequent 15 years of operations, and has 

2 

2See Title III, Sec 304 (c) of PL 103–236; http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?db 

name=103lconglbills&docid=f:h2333enr.txt.pdf. 

not been so since 2004. The current Board has only four members 

(two Republicans and two Democrats), each of whom has been serving since 2002. While this is well beyond the official 3-year term 

of office, Board members are, by law, able to serve until replaced.2

Since then partisan politics on both sides have blocked almost all 

further nominations. 

The Board has not had a formal chairman since June 2008 when 

the incumbent left to become the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy for the remainder of the Bush administration. The 

Obama administration did not formally submit candidates for a 

new Board until November 2009, but action on them is still pending as this report was going to print. This is especially unfortunate 

because the changing circumstances that have confronted the BBG 

since the current Board members were emplaced in 2002, both 

technical and geopolitical in nature, require immediate attention; 

attention the current Board is understandably reluctant to address 

given the nominations waiting in the wings. 

One of these issues is the growing concern over the ability of 

U.S. broadcasters to reach their desired audiences. Sometimes this 

is due to crowded media markets, such as in the Middle East, 

where our voice is one among many. Other times, our voice is silenced or suppressed, including in China, Iran, and Russia, which 

use intimidation to prevent local affiliates from carrying U.S. programming or use sophisticated technologies to shut down satellites, 

jam radio transmissions or block Internet sites. Each of these 

issues requires its own response, but without a new Board in place 

providing appropriate direction and guidance, these difficulties will 

only grow more pronounced. This report seeks to expand upon 

these issues for consideration by Congress and by the Board. 

FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

• The Broadcasting Board of Governors sets the policies and provides necessary oversight of U.S. broadcasting operations. The 

average vacancy rate for a seat on the Board is more than 470 

days (one seat has been vacant for more than 4 years). The 

Senate needs to confirm the current slate of nominees for the 

Broadcasting Board of Governors to provide needed leadership 

and guidance. Going forward, Presidents should move with dispatch to fill vacancies and should prioritize nominees with substantial international broadcasting experience. In the medium 

term, Congress must decide whether it is time to consider another management structure if Board staffing difficulties persist. 

• Alhurra—the U.S. 24-hour Arabic television news channel—is 

expensive, and with the exception of Iraq, little watched elsewhere in this vital region. Alhurra’s budget of some $90 million 

surpasses the combined budgets of Radio Free Asia ($37 million), Radio/TV Marti ($30 million) and VOA’s Persian News 

Network Television ($17 million). Given the crowded media environment of the Middle East, either greater resources must be 

devoted to marketing and promotion or additional programVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:02 Jul 15, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\DOCS\56883.TXT MIKEB
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ming changes must be enacted in pursuit of increasing the 

channel’s market share. Should these efforts fail to improve 

the overall viewership levels, policy makers will have to decide 

if continuing Alhurra’s operations is worth the costs. 

• The Chinese Government has issued only two work visas for 

Voice of America Beijing-based correspondents since 2009 and, 

for over a year, has blocked VOA from opening a bureau in 

Shanghai. By contrast, China’s state-run media organization— 

Xinhua News—has some 75 correspondents based in the 

United States. Since 2007, the U.S. Government has issued 

some 2,900 press visas to Chinese journalists and media personnel. 

• Journalists in Russia are routinely abducted, tortured, and 

murdered with virtual impunity. The number of Russian radio 

stations carrying Radio Free Europe’s Russian service broadcasting has declined precipitously from over 30 stations in 

2001 to currently 5; VOA’s dropped from 85 in 2003 to just one 

by 2009 as the Russian Government successfully silenced most 

BBG broadcasts by simply refusing to renew Russian radio station licenses unless U.S. programming was dropped. The State 

Department should raise this issue at the highest levels in its 

meetings and should monitor closely rising attempts to block 

BBG Internet sites. 

• In Asia, according to the human rights NGO Freedom House, 

the six countries served by Radio Free Asia are experiencing 

steadily dwindling levels of press freedom, with none currently 

ranked higher than 132 out of 195 countries. RFA, set up in 

1994 with the hope that the post-cold-war tide of democracy 

and liberalization would soon sweep Asia, was authorized only 

on a temporary basis. Congress should permanently authorize 

Radio Free Asia to recognize the unfortunate reality of press 

freedom in Asia, and put RFA on a legislative par with Radio 

Free Europe, Cuba Broadcasting, and Middle East Broadcasting. 

• The BBG’s Arabic-language Radio Sawa has an hourly format 

of 45 minutes of music with 15 minutes of news. As a result, 

Sawa was deemed heretical by many ‘‘news-only’’ advocates 

within the BBG when it appeared in 2002, yet Sawa quickly 

became popular with the ‘‘under 30’’ youth-bulge deemed critical in that region, virtually none of whom had listened to 

VOA’s Arabic radio programming. Over time though, as its format has been copied by local stations, Sawa’s listenership has 

declined by 25 percent. Greater funding for marketing or a 

change in formats may be needed. 

• While Radio Free Asia is tasked with reaching a population of 

over 1 billion people, its marketing budget for fiscal year 2009 

was less than $2,000. The Middle East Broadcasting Network, 

which oversees Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa, has seen its marketing budget fluctuate wildly from a few thousand dollars in 

2005 and 2006 to $100,000 in 2007, back to $5,000 in 2008 to 

over $1 million in 2009. Such inconsistencies wreak havoc with 

4 

3This report was released June 9, 2010; on July 7, 2010, following unanimous passage by both 

the Senate and House, President Obama signed S. 3104, sponsored by Senator Lugar, that permanently authorized Radio Free Asia. 

any long-term attempts to capture market share and must be 

addressed.3

• The Government of Iran continues to attempt to jam both 

VOA’s Persian News Network TV (which uses multiple satellite systems to prevent a total shutdown) and Radio Free Europe’s Persian-language ‘‘Radio Farda.’’ In February 2010, the 

Iranian Government arrested seven journalists who had merely held job interviews with Farda. Efforts to ensure that our 

programming gets through should remain a high priority. 

• Critics note that some BBG entities have allowed individuals 

opposed to U.S. policy to air their views without any rebuttal 

or balanced context. While allowing such vitriol to go 

uncontested is clearly poor journalism, such occurrences have 

been the rare exception, not the norm. Nonetheless, in order 

for the BBG to be credible to its audience and draw in not just 

those who already agree with U.S. policy, its networks must be 

permitted to present both sides of an argument. • Congress should revisit the Smith-Mundt legislation, which 

was passed originally in 1948 and later amended, which bans 

U.S. Government broadcasting within the U.S. for fear the government would unduly influence its own citizens. Today, however, Russia and China and other entities currently broadcast 

in English in the United States. Additionally, recent Arabicspeaking immigrants to the United States are able to watch Al 

Jazeera but prevented by Smith-Mundt from viewing Alhurra. 

These realities, coupled with the rise of the Internet, which enables computer users in the U.S. to receive video and audio 

streams of BBG broadcasts and readily access BBG Web sites, 

demonstrate that aspects of the legislation are both anachronistic and potentially harmful. 

• As part of its FY 2011 budget submission, the BBG has proposed closing its last U.S.-based short wave broadcasting facility, located in Greenville, North Carolina. The Board estimates 

a $3.2 million dollar savings as a result of this closure. While 

there is no question that audience for short-wave is decreasing 

in some countries, policymakers need to decide if shuttering 

the only remaining SW facility on American soil makes strategic sense. Additionally, while the U.S. has been jettisoning 

its shortwave frequencies, cutting some 60 stations in the last 

10 years, China has been doing the exact opposite, almost doubling its number to 284 in the same period. 

INTRODUCTION

Greater official U.S. interest in Public Diplomacy began in the 

wake of 9/11 with the rise of the ‘‘Why do they hate us?’’ introspection. The imperative was to ‘‘move the needle’’ as quickly as possible from ‘‘Hate the United States’’ to, if not exactly ‘‘Love’’ at 

least, ‘‘Like’’ the U.S. The main vehicle was to be Public Diplomacy 

(PD), defined here as a government’s attempt to engage the local 

population of a country directly, rather than through official interVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:02 Jul 15, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\56883.TXT MIKEB
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4FY 2008 chart from Government Accountability Office Report http://www.gao.gov/new.items/ 

d09679sp.pdf FY 2010 was prepared for this report by the GAO. 5 VOA was first under the Office of War Information, moved to the State Department from 

1945–53, and then located in the U.S. Information Agency. In 1999 when USIA was absorbed 

by the State Department, VOA and the surrogate stations were kept out of the State Department and left under the control of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (which had been overseeing U.S. broadcasting from within USIA since 1995) which then became an independent entity. BBG and VOA headquarters are in Washington, DC, with transmission facilities around the 

world. 6 RFE/RL, based in Prague, Czech Republic currently broadcasts to 21 countries in 28 languages, though it is now far afield, with broadcasts now also to Iraq and Iran (since 1998), Afghanistan (2002) and the Pakistan border area (2010). 7PL 98-111 The Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act created ‘‘Radio Marti’’ in 1983 as a surrogate 

station, distinct from any VOA transmissions to Cuba. Radio Marti went on the air in 1985, 

‘‘TV Marti’’ began operations in 1990. Both services are currently located in Miami, Florida. 8 RFA, located in Washington, was created in 1994 by PL103-236 and began broadcasting in 

1997. It currently broadcasts to Burma, Cambodia, China, Laos, North Korea, Tibet and Vietnam in major and local dialects. 9The Middle East Broadcast Networks includes Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa. Radio Sawa 

began broadcasting 24 hours a day on March 23, 2002. Alhurra began transmission on February 

14, 2004. MBN is located in Springfield, VA a suburb of Washington, DC. 10Typically, it is the surrogates complaining that VOA’s language services are focusing more 

and more on local content. Nonetheless, VOA’s Afghan service (Radio Ashna) and RFE/RL’s 

Radio Azadi work well in tandem, with Ashna broadcasting American and international news 

for 12 hours in the evening, followed by Azadi covering 12 hours of local news. See Appendix 

A for a country-by-country analysis of the BBG products for each country including the number 

of hours, method of transmission and languages. Interestingly, the VOA’s main webpage contains links to RFE/RL and RFA, but not Radio/TV Marti or MBN; RFE/RL links only to the 

BBG’s main page; RFA links to VOA and BBG; Marti links to none; MBN’s Alhurra links only 

to Sawa (and vice versa). Appendix B lists all the languages BBG broadcasts in. 

actions with a host government. PD has many facets: from government sponsored educational exchanges, cultural events, sports and 

science envoys, to public statements and official actions. International broadcasting is an integral part of U.S. PD. 

As the Government Accountability Office charts below show, 

American PD funding is divided between various offices between 

the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors. In 

Fiscal Year 2008, Broadcasting received 43 percent of the PD budget, but in FY2010 this figure had fallen to 40 percent, though funding for almost all of the individual accounts was increased.4

In the BBG, there are five main broadcasting entities: the Voice 

of America (VOA) which was established in 1942,5 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) in 1949,6 the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB) in 1983,7 Radio Free Asia (RFA) in 19968 and the 

Middle East Broadcasting Network (MBN) in 2004.9 VOA is intended to provide its listeners with news and information about the 

United States, the world and the particular region to which it is 

broadcasting. The surrogates are intended to focus their reporting 

on the news from inside the countries they are broadcasting to. In 

reality, each does a little of both to the point that some are questioning whether one or the other is necessary.10

6 

FY 2008 Diplomacy Spending 

Source: State Department and BBG. 


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11Since 2001, the BBG has been the beneficiary of increases in funding, with its annual budg- et rising from roughly $425 million to over $750 million. This has come, in large part at the 

direction of Congress, as a result of launching a host of new channels. During this same time, 

BBG believes its global audiences has climbed some 70 percent from 100 million weekly to over 

170 million. The one recent exception to these increases is the Office of Cuba Broadcasting’s 

Radio/TV Marti as Congressional critics and the General Accountability Office have questioned 

its effectiveness. See: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09127.pdf and http://foreign.senate.gov/imo/ 

media/doc/56157.pdf 12See http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/01/26/haiti.flying.radio/index.html#cnnSTCText. At 

night, powerful AM transmitters from Florida were able to carry VOA throughout Haiti, obviating the need for nighttime flights as, due to atmospheric conditions, AM has a much longer 

range after sunset. 13 Appendix C provides a list of current and previous BBG entity directors. 

As the chart above suggests, funding for U.S. broadcasting has 

seen steady, and in some cases significant, increases.11

Recent years have also seen a much more harmonious relationship between civilian and military Public Diplomacy efforts. This 

willingness to share, rather than stovepipe, resources was perhaps 

best displayed during the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti when the military loaned one of its Lockheed EC130 ‘‘Commando Solo’’ communications planes to the relief operation for four weeks. The plane enabled the Voice of America’s Creole service to transmit for 10 hours on 4 FM and 1 AM frequency 

during the day as virtually all of Haiti’s radio towers or stations 

had been severely damaged or destroyed.12

This report will examine what tools the BBG is using to accomplish its mission, what the challenges are and what have been the 

latest innovations. At the same time it will examine how other 

countries are approaching these issues in hopes of providing policy 

makers with a better understanding of how our efforts compare 

and compete in the global marketplace of information and public 

diplomacy.13

THE BROADCASTING BOARD OF GOVERNORS: 

THE ‘‘FIREWALL’’ HAS BECOME THE ‘‘FOOTBALL’’ 

The Broadcasting Board of Governors was created by Congress in 

1994 as an independent agency to be a bi-partisan buffer to potential political interference and to ensure its products were objective 

and balanced. To that end, Congress created an eight-member 

board evenly split along party lines, with the Secretary of State as 

the ninth member and one of the eight (from the party in the 


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14 Board members receive no salary, and are only paid for travel and per diem expenses while 

they are on Board business. 15http://ibb7-2.ibb.gov/bbg/board.html#nathanson 16The nominees submitted by the White House are listed below, confusingly, the party affiliations of each nominee do not always correspond with the incumbent; additionally, terms have 

been staggered for terms of one, two or three years in order to maintain continuity: 

• Victor H. Ashe (R) (term expiring 8/13/2010) vice James K. Glassman (R); 

• Walter Isaacson (D) (term expiring 8/13/2012) vice Steven J. Simmons (R) (Isaacson also 

replacing Glassman as Chair); 

• Michael Lynton (D) (term expiring 8/13/2012) vice Mark McKinnon (R); 

• Susan McCue (D) (term expiring 8/13/2011) vice Joaquin F. Blaya (D); 

• Michael P. Meehan (D) (term expiring 8/13/2010) vice Jeffrey Hirschberg (D); 

• Dennis Mulhaupt (R) (term expiring 8/13/2011) vice Blanquita Walsh Cullum (R); 

• Dana M. Perino (R) (term expiring 8/13/2012) vice Edward E. Kaufman (D); and 

• S. Enders Wimbush (R) (term expiring 8/13/2010) vice Norman J. Pattiz (D). 17This report was initially released on June 9, 2010. The nominees were finally confirmed by 

the full Senate on June 30, 2010. 

White House) nominated as Chairman.14 As then-BBG Chairman 

Marc Nathanson said in 2001: 

It is our responsibility to serve as a firewall between the international 

broadcasters and the policy-making institutions in the foreign affairs community, both in here in Washington and overseas. This is a responsibility 

we take very seriously. Because at the end of the day, it is precisely by providing accurate news and information—sought and trusted by people 

around the world—that we earn and keep our credibility.15

However vacancies have plagued the Board, and as the chart 

below demonstrates, it has not been at full strength since 2004. 

Much of this has been due to both parties in the Senate playing 

politics with Board nominations. Currently, the four Board members, each of whom was confirmed in 2002, are serving well beyond 

their three-year term of office; should any one of them resign, the 

Board would no longer have a quorum. In spite of this, it was not 

until November 19, 2009, that the Obama administration nominated a full slate of eight candidates to form a new Board.16 To 

date, none has been confirmed by the Senate.17


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18Survey results can be found here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/ 

leadership_and_knowledge_index.pdf (Note: RFE/RL, RFA or MBN employees were not part of 

the survey.) 19See the recent ‘‘Russia Fears Crackdown on Freedom’’ from May, 6, 2010 http://rbth.ru/articles/2010/05/06/russia—fears—crackdown—freedom.html; the 2002 International Federation of 

Journalists Condemnation on Russian Crackdown on Media Reporting of Chechen Militants 

http://www.ifj.org/en/articles/ifj-condemns-russian-crackdown-on-media-reporting-of-chechen-mil 

itants- ; 20 ‘‘Russian Journalist Dies After Beating in Police Custody’’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/ 

2010/jan/21/journalist-safety-russia; ‘‘Investigative Journalist Killed’’ http://www.usatoday. 

com/news/world/2006-10-07-russia-journalist—x.htm; ‘‘Forbes’ Russian Editor Shot Dead’’ http:// 

www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aBbb15QXw0cE&refer=top_world_news- redirectoldpage; a comprehensive list can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ journalists_killed_in_Russia 21http://www.freedomhouse.org/uploads/fop09/FoP2009—World—Rankings.pdf While some 

criticize Freedom House as simply an arm of the U.S. government and therefore biased, it is 

worth noting that the 2009 Index ranked the U.S. #24 on its Press Freedom Index (tied with 

Lithuanian and the Czech Republic) and below such countries as Portugal, Jamaica and Germany. 

As the chart on page 11 shows, as of June 9, 2010, the average 

vacancy for a Board position is over 470 days, with one position vacant for over four years. We must acknowledge that a structure 

that was created to be a political ‘‘firewall’’ has in fact become a 

political ‘‘football.’’ Unless the situation changes rapidly, it is time 

to consider a replacement structure to the Board to carry out its 

vital functions. 

This chronic dysfunction of the confirmation process has had a 

profound impact on our broadcasting efforts. The current Board 

clearly knows that its time is limited and is therefore understandably hesitant to make changes that the incoming nominees may or 

may not agree with. Similarly, this lack of direction or certainty of 

leadership has greatly eroded the morale of BBG employees. 

A 2008 survey of federal workers in 37 agencies found the BBG 

ranked last in indexes for Leadership and Knowledge Management, 

Results-Oriented Performance Culture, Talent Management, and 

second to last on Job Satisfaction. Perhaps even more telling, these 

results were exactly the same from the 2006 version of the survey.18

As detailed below, the plethora of challenges confronting U.S. 

broadcasting are daunting and deserve immediate attention, and 

cannot be allowed to fester. If the Senate truly believes that such 

bi-partisan boards provide an effective management and oversight 

tool, the new Board should be confirmed. If the Senate feels otherwise, then perhaps the time has come to abolish the Board and create a different entity that will have greater Congressional confidence. 

RUSSIA—SLOWLY STRANGLING THE MEDIA

The ever tightening censorship of the Russian media by the state 

has been well documented.19 Starting in 1993 under Russian President Yeltsin, through Vladimir Putin to Dmitry Medvedev, some 

200 journalists have been killed, with most murders remaining unsolved (including the most infamous cases to date, the 2004 murder 

of American Paul Klebnikov and the 2006 murder of Anna 

Politkovskaya), and with many mysteriously falling from their windows in alleged suicides or in police custody.20 Freedom House’s 

Freedom of the Press Index downgraded Russia’s rank from 147 in 

its 2004 Index to 174 out of 195 in 2009.21

11 


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22See http://www.rferl.org/ for further breakdowns on all of RFE/RL’s language services. 

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was founded in 1949 largely to 

broadcast to the Soviet Union and its East European satellites the 

news and events going on inside their own borders. With the fall 

of the Berlin Wall, the onset of democratic elections and democratic 

practices—combined with mounting budgetary pressures and demands for individual language services for many of the former Soviet Republics—much of RFE/RL’s service in Eastern Europe (with 

the exception of the Balkan nations, Ukraine, Belarus and 

Moldova) has ended. Free press issues in the Caucuses (Georgia, 

Armenia and Azerbaijan) as well as the former Central Asian Republics of the Soviet Union (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, 

Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) also kept RFE/RL busy and relevant throughout the 1990s, as of course, did Russia.22

Because of changing Russian consumer tastes, and a brief window of press freedoms, RFE/RLwas able to arrange for affiliate 

agreements with a variety of Russian FM channels to carry the 

Russian-language station Radio ‘‘Svoboda’’ (‘‘Freedom/Liberty’’). By 

2002, over 30 radio stations throughout Russia’s nine time zones 

carried Svoboda, but as the chart below demonstrates, the situation 

rapidly deteriorated. Russian officials never banned Svoboda outright. Rather, radio stations seeking a renewal of their licenses 

were simply told that the process would transpire much more 

smoothly if the RFE/RL’s programming agreements were not renewed. Currently, only four stations carry Svoboda and most are 

in marginalized areas. Its lone Moscow AM station is hampered by 

low voltage and the prevalence of overhead electric tram lines 

which create significant signal distortions at street level. 

Radio Free Europe’s Central Newsroom in Prague 


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23The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), too, was forced off FM, though a year earlier, 

in August 2007, see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007/08—august/17/ 

moscow.shtml which tells the tale of BBC’s Moscow FM station ‘‘Bolshoye Radio’’ being forced 

off the air ‘‘The owners of Bolshoye Radio . . . have told representatives of the BBC Russian 

Service that they are required to remove BBC programming at the request of Russian licensing 

authorities, or risk the station being taken off-air.’’ 24Following the invasion of Georgia, the BBG surged its Georgian language broadcasting. 

Currently, VOA broadcasts 14 hours in SW/week to Georgia, while RFE/RL offers four hours 

of radio/day via satellite, with both offering constant Internet updates. 

RFE was not alone in broadcasting to Russia, as VOA’s Russian 

service was, for a while, even more successful in its number of affiliates than RFE. However, effective efforts by Moscow authorities 

to similarly silence VOA affiliates led to VOA canceling its radio 

service in frustration, relying instead only on the Internet.23 The 

fact that the Board did not even issue a press release announcing 

the cancelation galled many. The fact that the decision was effected 

on July 26, 2008, by chance less than two weeks before the August 

7 Russian invasion of Georgia, only made the situation worse.24

Perhaps the Board decided to let VOA Russian go silently into 

the night in order not to allow the Russians to ‘‘declare victory,’’ 

but it was a missed opportunity to call the world’s attention to a 

growing threat to a vital component of real democracies—a press 

that is able to tell the truth without fear of harassment, suppression or worse. 


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25http://blogs.rnw.nl/medianetwork/voa-launches-website-for-russian-mobile-phone-users. 

Currently, as the chart above shows, VOA is totally Internet 

based. As the chart below from May 2010 of Russian-language 

websites indicates, this may not be such a bad investment as viewing of VOA’s Russian stories on YouTube have been strong, and 

VOA also just launched in March 2010 a website for mobile phone 

users: http://ru.voa.mobi/.25

Russian Language Sites 


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26See ‘‘Iran’s Love Affair With America’’ http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0119/p09s02- 

coop.html; 77 percent of Iranians favor normal relations with the U.S. in June 2009 poll of 1,000 

Iranians in: http://www.terrorfreetomorrow.org/upimagestft/TFT percent20Iran percent20Survey 

percent20Report percent200609.pdf. 27http://www.america.gov/st/sports-english/2008/July/200807241441550pnativel0.19125.html; 

http://www.payvand.com/news/08/jul/1240.html;http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2007/ 

January/20070125154816attocnich0.453747.html. 28http://www.hadifarnoud.ir/unlock-iphone; http://asia.cnet.com/blogs/cyberpersia/post.htm?id= 

63000621. 29 VOA’s PNN was established in 1979 as a radio service, PNN TV began in 2007. See PPN’s 

iPhone app here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/voa-pnn/id348178315?mt=8. 30PNN broadcasts 35 hours of radio a week—one hour original in the morning, then four 

hours of audio stream of PNNTV in the evening—vice a total of 168 hours of TV a week. 

IRAN—TOUGH ON JOURNALISTS AND TECHNOLOGY

The U.S. relationship with the Iranian people is a complicated 

one. Personal and professional links and positive memories of the 

United States in the older generations, many of whom were educated in American universities, have trickled down to Iranian 

youth, even as official media routinely denounces America as ‘‘The 

Great Satan.’’26 Nonetheless, with almost half of Iran’s population 

having been born since the 1979 revolution, greater engagement 

with this segment of the population is essential for American Public Diplomacy. 

Without any formal diplomatic relations with Iran, the U.S. has 

nonetheless been engaging in people-to-people diplomacy. From 

2006-8, using sports such as basketball, ping-pong and wrestling, 

American and Iranian teams have quietly been competing internationally but also participating in tournaments in each other’s 

country.27 (However, since 2009 four similar sports exchanges were 

planned, only to be quashed by the Iranian Foreign Ministry.) 

Similarly, American universities have begun to initiate small-scale 

efforts to try to bring Iranian students to the U.S. for long-term 

studies. Additionally, from 2006–8, 18 Iranian university students 

were part of a U.S. government program that brought them to 

American universities to study English, and they served as Persian 

language teaching assistants in U.S. classrooms (more recent programs were likewise canceled by Iran). In spite of the fact that Iranian youth face prolonged visa processing times, they have been 

eager to re-engage with Americans via such routes. 

Iran’s complex culture is often overly-simplified in attempts to 

isolate a government that bent on acquiring nuclear capabilities regardless of the economic and diplomatic costs. Iranian love of technology ensured that even software issues with Apple’s iPhone were 

quickly resolved when the phone was first released, and smuggled 

phones were fetching upwards of $1,400 each.28 VOA has recognized this love of technology and created an ‘‘app’’ for Apple’s 

iPhone as well as the latest Android/Google phone that allows Iranians to upload videos from their phones directly to VOA’s Persian 

News Network (PNN)—thus making anyone with such a device a 

roving journalist.29 This is particularly useful for PNN, for it—unlike most of VOA’s other stations—focuses heavily on TV broadcasts, given that in Iran, some 94 percent of the population say 

they get their news from television, while only 35 percent report 

they use radio for news.30

PNN broadcasts to Iran are currently carried on 7 Frequencies 

on 6 different satellites in order to avoid complete jamming by the 

16 

31 A complete PNN schedule can be found in Appendix D. To mark the one-year anniversary 

of the June 2009 disputed presidential elections, PNN, in conjunction with HBO, is showing the 

documentary ‘‘For Neda’’ about Neda Agha-Soltan, the young Iranian who became a symbol of 

Iran’s post-election protests when images of her dying moments were captured on cell phones 

and shown around the world, as well as making the film available on its website. Greater 

leveraging of public-private cooperation would provide U.S. broadcasters with much needed content. 32See p. 16 of the BBG’s FY2011 Budget Submission for the 2009 figure: http://www.bbg.gov/ 

reports/documents/BBGFY2011CONGBudgetSubmission-ForInternetPost.pdf. The BBG believes 

the decline in 2010 was most likely due to increased jamming and greater reluctance on the 

part of Iranians to admitting to watching foreign broadcasts in an ever-increasingly repressive 

environment. The same study, a May 5, 2010 poll conducted by Intermedia and shared with 

Committee staff, shows BBC-Persian at only 10.2 percent. However, BBC was the only service 

in the poll, which included Iranian news media as well, that saw an increase from 2009, when 

BBC was at 2.5 percent. This increase suggests that PNN may be facing some stiff competition 

in the future. 33See the BBC’s June 2009 complaints: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jun/17/iran-bbcjamming-bloggers-revolutionary-guard; the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ December 2009 

condemnation of Iranian jamming of PNN and Radio Farda: http://www.bbg.gov/pressroom/ 

pressreleases-article.cfm?articleID=443; the February 12, 2010 joint VOA-BBC-Deutsche Welle 

joint release calling for an end to jamming: http://en.irangreenvoice.com/article/2010/feb/12/1132; 

finally the March 26, 2010 call by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) for Iran 

to stop jamming: http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/english/detail/92866.html. 

Iranian authorities. Its 24-hour coverage is entirely live from 6pm 

local time to midnight. These programs are then repeated from 

midnight to 6pm the next day, except for an additional live hour 

of morning news from 6–7am (for a total of 49 hours a week of 

original programming).31 The BBG claims that 2009 research 

shows that PNN ‘‘commands a weekly TV audience of 29.9 percent 

of adults in Iran’’ (some 13 million people); however a 2010 BBG 

survey now has this number down to 20 percent.32

U.S. broadcasting has thus empowered and elevated average Iranian citizens by enabling them to share with the world Tehran’s repression of their democratic efforts. As a result, the Iranian regime 

has gone to great and repeated lengths to block not only U.S., but 

many other western media outlets from transmitting into Iran.33


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34PNN is also heavily invested in the Internet, and according to the BBG, during the election 

crisis in 2009, some 400,000 visitors viewed their webpages on a daily basis; See page 70 of the 

FY2011 BBG Budget Submission http://www.bbg.gov/reports/documents/BBGFY2011CONG 

BudgetSubmission-ForInternetPost.pdf See http://flashvideo.rferl.org/Flashmaps/en-US/coverageOneWin/default.htm for RFE/RL’s excellent interactive map which denotes its coverage in 

each country including and from where it broadcasts. 35The VOA responded by noting that they in fact offered equal air time to opposing views 

to each commentator one of whom was an opposition journalist and the other a U.S.-based expert who had testified before Congress on the effectiveness of sanctions against Iran. See Washington Times ‘‘Mouthpiece of the Mullahs’’ April 14, 2010: http: / / www.washingtontimes.com / 

news / 2010 / apr /14 / voice-of-the-mullahs/ and VOA’s rebuttal of April 19 http: / / www.wash 

Continued 

In addition to PNN, which broadcasts from Washington, Radio 

Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Persian-language Radio ‘‘Farda’’ (‘‘Tomorrow’’) broadcasts from RFE/RL’s headquarters in Prague. 

Farda’s programming is a mix of news and entertainment with 

over half the day devoted to news and information programs including talk shows and features, with some 45 percent of the time 

devoted to cultural programming and music. Farda reaches Iran either through AM radio transmissions from the United Arab Emirates (1575 AM) or through numerous shortwave stations, in addition to the Internet.34 Tehran routinely blocks Farda’s radio and 

Internet, with Farda relying on proxy servers to get around this 

where possible. 

In spite of this clear animosity the Iranian regime feels for American programming, critics of U.S. broadcasting have expressed concerns that PNN is in fact the ‘‘Voice of Mullahs’’ for offering airtime 

to two commentators who were critical of U.S. policies towards Iran 

and for PNN’s failure to present opposing views.35 Other critics of 


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ingtontimes.com / news / 2010/apr/19/voas-persian-news-aims-for-objectivity/ both of which are 

printed in full in Appendix E of this report. U.S. government oversight of BBG services is extensive and conducted by both the State Department’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and 

the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the latter of which reports directly to Congress. 

Appendix F has lists and links of OIG and GAO reports on the BBG and its services. 

36 22 U.S.C. 6202—The law is even more specific for VOA: ‘‘To be effective, the Voice of America must win the attention and respect of listeners.These principles will therefore govern Voice 

of America (VOA) broadcasts: (1) VOA will serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative 

source of news. VOA news will be accurate, objective, and comprehensive. (2) VOA will represent 

America, not any single segment of American society, and will therefore present a balanced and 

comprehensive projection of significant American thought and institutions. (3) VOA will present 

the policies of the United States clearly and effectively, and will also present responsible discussions and opinion on these policies.’’ http://vlex.com/vid/sec-standards-and-principles-19202272. 37Full testimony and video of the hearing available here: http://foreign.senate.gov/hearings/ 

hearing/?id=673071c8-9c31-1adf-c848-9eef0ff7ca92. 

PNN and Radio Farda take the exact opposite view, arguing that 

PNN/Farda, and many other U.S. surrogate stations, are simply 

classic ‘‘e ́migre ́ media’’ staffed by those forced out of their homeland, and therefore incapable and unwilling to portray anything 

but the worst aspects of their native lands—with the consequence, 

the critics argue, that listeners will quickly turn them off for being 

viewed as ‘‘mouthpieces’’ of the U.S. government. 

The first type of criticism of PNN underscores an issue that has 

bedeviled U.S. broadcasting for years. Some feel that our efforts 

should only be used to tell the U.S. side of a story, due in part because most other media outlets in the world are heavily biased 

against the U.S. and its foreign policy. Others, most of whom do 

not dispute the anti-U.S. bias charge, believe that in order for U.S. 

broadcasts to gain and retain audiences, they must be true to the 

Broadcasting Standards and Principles and Standards as codified 

in law 36 including: 

• News which is consistently reliable and authoritative, accurate, objective, and comprehensive. 

• A balanced and comprehensive projection of United States 

thought and institutions, reflecting the diversity of United 

States culture and society. 

‘‘Objective’’ news must, by definition, offer both sides of an issue, 

even if the other side runs contrary to U.S. policy. BBG Governor 

Jeffrey Hirschberg responded in an October 15, 2009 hearing before 

the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when asked about the 

value of U.S. Broadcasting in terms of creating positive trends towards the United States and its foreign policies: 

The BBG does not do messaging. Our broadcasters do not do messaging. 

So if you are asking for a one-to-one correlation as to whether or not for 

every dollar we spend we can change hearts and minds, we cannot do that 

for you. We cannot give you that. That research is not available to us. But 

what is available to us is that we know we have an impact. We know that 

people like our broadcasting. We know that people listen to our broadcasting. We know that people call into our broadcasting. We know that they 

participate. We know that we are engaging their publics in a way and 

through targeted research that has never been done before. So from that 

standpoint, we think that indirectly we do have that kind of impact that 

you are looking for.37

As President Kennedy’s first director of the U.S. Information Service, and noted journalist Edward R. Murrow stated, ‘‘To be persuasive, we must be believable, to be believable we must be credible.’’ 

Many would also argue to be credible we must be willing to air the 

views of those who do not always agree with us. 

19 

38To broaden its audience appeal, Farda launched at the end of May 2010 a satirical radio 

program ‘‘Pas Farda’’ (‘‘The Day After Tomorrow’’) from Prague that will run Saturday-Wednesday (10pm-11pm) and be hosted by a former Iranian radio personality who ran afoul of the authorities some three years ago for a similar program. ‘‘Pas Farda’’ has been likened to a ‘‘radio 

version of the Daily Show.’’ RFE/RL hopes the popular host—Farshid Manafi—will pull in larger 

audiences. 39See ‘‘Iran widens journalist crackdown before demonstrations’’ in http://www.csmonitor.com/ 

World/Middle-East/2010/0210/Iran-widens-journalist-crackdown-before-demonstrations 

The other group of critics charges that, what they perceive to be, 

the very one-sided nature of such services will limit the ability of 

U.S. broadcasting to gain larger audiences as only those already 

pre-disposed against a regime will tune in. This is a classic issue 

faced by surrogate broadcasting efforts. Such services are used 

when a government restricts freedom of the media. Any government that does this most often represses its citizens in other ways; 

thus, any such government is unlikely to have many praiseworthy 

qualities. However, some say, if U.S. broadcasting only focuses on 

the negative audiences, often tire of this ‘‘Johnny-one-note’’ approach and turn to other sources instead. Hence the conundrum, 

how to inform listeners and ensure they will keep listening. 

While Farda’s almost-half music/entertainment format would 

seem to suggest the opposite, when asked to provide examples of 

stories that would refute this ‘‘preaching to the choir’’ format, Committee staff were provided with the example of Farda’s coverage of 

a recent Tehran film festival—where the story’s focus was not on 

the films being shown, but the films that had been banned by the 

government.38

Working for a U.S. broadcasting entity is not without its risks. 

In February 2010 Iran arrested 7 Iranian journalists on suspicion 

of working for a ‘‘counter-revolutionary Zionist satellite station.’’ 39

In fact, of those arrested, most had only interviewed with RFE/RL 

and had not even been offered a job. However, because those interviews had been conducted outside Iran in countries thought to be 

‘‘safe,’’ the arrests sent a chill down Radio Farda’s collective spine 

as it became clear that Iranian authorities had been able to access 

either Farda’s Internet or phone service. RFE/RL has taken steps 

to address these issues, but no doubt the Tehran government will 

not stop its efforts to infiltrate or hack into U.S. broadcasters. 

As part of its FY 2011 budget submission, the BBG is proposing, 

‘‘given shifting media consumption towards television and the 

Internet’’ ending radio simulcasts/rebroadcasts of PNN television 

programming and one hour daily of original VOA Persian radio, for 

a savings of some $1 million. As of May 2010, both PNN and Radio 

Farda seem to be using social media more effectively than other 

Persian-language sites. 

20 

40 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/technology/19china.html?ref=world. Secretary of State 

Clinton’s assertion that China restricts the Internet access of its citizens and her call for a full 

Chinese investigation into the attack on Google during her January 21, 2010 speech on Internet 

Freedom in Washington, DC (http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/01/135519.htm) met with a 

harsh rebuke from the Chinese Foreign Ministry which urged the United States to ‘‘respect facts 

and stop attacking China under the excuse of the so-called freedom of Internet.’’ See: http:// 

www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/xwfw/s2510/t653351.htm. A similar charge by the MFA was leveled at the 

U.S. following the President’s May 2, 2010 Statement on World Press Freedom Day which stated 

‘‘ . . . governments like China, Ethiopia, Iran and Venezuela curtailed freedom of expression 

by limiting full access to and use of’’ the Internet; http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/ 

statement-president-world-press-freedom-day to which the Chinese MFA retorted. ‘‘We urge the 

U.S. to respect the facts, view China’s press freedom correctly and stop groundless accusations 

against China,’’ http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-05/07/c_13282468.htm. 41The 2010 Shanghai Expo, and its implications and impact of such expos on U.S. Public Diplomacy and how the United States approaches them, will be the subject of a separate Committee report. 42See ‘‘From China’s Mouth to Texans’ Ears: Outreach Includes Small Station in Galveston’’ 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/24/AR2010042402492—pf.html 43 A list of all the Chinese media outlets registered at the Foreign Press Center is located in 

Appendix G of this report; however, because foreign journalists are not required to register at 

the FPC, the 160 figure is likely lower than the total. 

Persian Language Sites 

CHINA—EVER EXPANDING, AND NOW IN THE USA 

While the biggest news regarding China in 2010 was the January attack on Google’s China-based operations and Google’s eventual decision to relocate its operations to Hong Kong rather than 

abide by Beijing’s Internet restrictions,40 China continued its PD 

outreach activities apace. 

China’s ever-expanding PD efforts have deservedly garnered increasing attention. Many point to the 2008 Summer Olympics as 

the catalyst for Beijing’s efforts. Having spent some $44 Billion for 

three weeks of worldwide coverage, China is now spending over $50 

Billion for six months worth of attention at the 2010 Shanghai 

World Expo.41

China’s push for greater engagement was also made clear by its 

recent licensing of an AM radio station in Galveston, Texas, to 

broadcast China Radio International. The United States, on the 

other hand, has never been given a license to broadcast from within China. As noted in the Washington Post article which broke this 

story, the Chinese government-run news agency Xinhua is also in 

the process of moving its American headquarters to a massive office in Times Square in New York.42 According to the State Department’s Foreign Press Center in Washington, there are over 160 

Chinese journalists in the United States with some 75 working for 

Xinhua.43 By contrast, according the State Department, there are 

approximately 120 American journalists currently in China, yet, of 

those, the Voice of America has only been issued visas for only two 


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44 In contrast, the State Department has issued some 2,900 ‘‘I’’ visas in the past four years: 

Fiscal year 2010—389 (as of May 4, 2010); Fiscal year 2009—783; Fiscal year 2008—848; and 

Fiscal year 2007—845. 

The definition of an ‘‘I’’ visa recipient is fairly broad, and includes foreign nationals working 

for U.S. media companies as well as those engaged in news and documentary production staff, 

the vast disparity in numbers is simply staggering; full details of ‘‘I’’ visas: http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/types/types—1276.html. A request for similar information from the Chinese Embassy in Washington was not answered. 45http://www.rfa.org/english/. 46See New York Times article http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/technology/29spy.html 

‘‘[Chinese] sleuthing opened a window into a broader operation that, in less than two years has 

infiltrated at least 1,205 computers in 103 countries, including many belonging to embassies, 

foreign ministries and other government offices . . . ’’; see also Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/ 

article/idUSTRE5AI5UZ20091120. ‘‘The amount of ‘malicious’[computer] activities against the 

United States increased in 2008 and is rising sharply this year,’’ . . . adding ‘‘Much of this activity appears to originate in China.’’ 47 VOA’s Mandarin service reports similar attacks, although not on the same scale or scope 

as RFA. 48The English version can be found here: http://www.rfa.org/english/about/help/web—access.html which lists such proxies as Freegate, Fire Phoenix, Freenet, Garden Networks, 

Ultrasurf and Garden Networks as well as ‘‘Green Tsunami’’ developed expressly to get around 

the Chinese government’s Green Dam firewall. 

full-time correspondents in China, based in Beijing.44 Recent attempts by VOA to open a bureau in Shanghai have been blocked 

as the Chinese Foreign Ministry has refused for over a year to 

issue any visas for this effort. Xinhua has bureaus registered in 

Washington, DC, New York and Los Angeles. 

The Voice of America’s 65 hours/week broadcasts in Mandarin 

and 14 hours/week in Cantonese is supplemented with an hour/day 

of TV in Mandarin and 30 minutes/day in Cantonese that is a simulcast with radio. There is also a once-a-week, 30 minute TV program titled Cultural Odyssey which highlights U.S. culture and 

heritage. 

Additionally, Radio Free Asia broadcasts 12 hours/day in Mandarin over SW and satellite radio, 2 hours/day in Cantonese, 10 

hours/day in Tibetan and 2 hours/day in Uyghur. Each language 

has its own website as well as RSS feed, podcast, YouTube channel, 

Facebook page, Twitter account, mobile site and numerous in-country alias blog accounts.45 RFA has never been allowed to have a bureau inside China, and visas for RFA coverage of numerous news 

events in China are routinely denied. 

RFA, in particular, has been subjected to hostile Internet attacks 

long pre-dating Google’s public protest of Chinese cyber-hacking 

tactics,46 whether having its sites blocked or its servers hacked 

into.47 (As a result, the BBG has been one of the leaders in the use 

and development of ‘‘Internet censorship circumvention’’ technology 

that enables users to access its sites through so-called ‘‘proxy servers’’ that benefit not only RFA and VOA/Mandarin but RFE/RL and 

VOA’s Persian language services.) The Chinese government pays 

close attention to these proxies as well, often blocking them on a 

daily basis. The BBG’s Engineering Office works equally hard to 

ensure new proxies are created. 

As such, RFA’s websites clearly display a ‘‘Getting Around Internet Blockage’’ button on the first page of each of its language 

pages.48 RFA reports that China is not alone in its attempt to keep 

its citizens from accessing RFA’s sites, though China is by far the 

22 

49See the April 22, 2010 RFA interview with Professor Sun Wenguang on the virtual shutdown of Internet access to the Uyghur homeland of Xinjiang province in western China: http:// 

www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/internet-04222010123829.html?searchterm=None 50 RFA Social media numbers were compiled by RFA staff who accessed their numerous proxy 

sites to collate the final numbers. 

most aggressive.49 According to RFA officials, other nations with 

aggressive Internet blockage include Vietnam and Burma. 

There are approximately 760 million mobile device users in 

China, representing more than 80 percent market penetration 

among Chinese adults. While this would suggest an enormous potential audience to receive SMS/text messages, these devices are 

operated by three major government-controlled or owned Mobile 

phone network companies, China Mobile, China Unicom and China 

Telecom. RFA is not actively pursuing SMS transmissions in China 

in part because the content would easily be subject to blocking, 

monitoring, recording and censoring. RFA has considered having a 

self-selecting ‘‘risk-taking’’ group for SMS messages, but determined that it would be cost-prohibitive at this time. In contrast, 

the proliferation of 3G and 4G capable mobile devices and mobile 

proxy capabilities, with the capacity to have users share videos and 

MP3 files, represents a major area of RFA expansion. 

As shown below, both RFA’s Mandarin and VOA’s YouTube outreach seem to be achieving considerable effect in spite of routinely 

being blocked (albeit relative success, given a country of one billion). Because of China’s sophisticated Internet filtering system, 

Radio Free Asia engages online audiences inside the ‘‘Great Firewall’’ through proactive blogging and online outreach, making use 

of a diverse range of alias accounts on domestic microblogging platforms, and social networking Web sites within the Great Firewall. 

For example, according to RFA officials, on any given day, RFA’s 

Mandarin and Cantonese services can have over two dozen alias 

blogs running with an average of 1,300 interactive followers, who 

both use RFA content and provide source material. 

Chinese Language Sites 50


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51For a spirited defense of the creation of Alhurra, and the need to curtail VOA’s Short Wave 

English service, see former BBG Chairman Ken Tomlinson’s 2007 article in Arab Media and Society: http://www.arabmediasociety.com/articles/downloads/20070514205552_AMS2_Kenneth_Y 

_Tomlinson.pdf; a lengthy analysis of Alhurra can be found here: http://www.propublica.org/feature/alhurra-middle-east-hearts-and-minds-622, and here: http://sites.maxwell.syr.edu/luce/ 

snow.html for another perspective. 52http://lynch.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/01/27/obama—on—al—arabiya; MBN officials note 

that in the first five months of 2010 alone Secretary of State Clinton has been on Alhurra as 

have a multitude of State Department, Department of Defense and National Security Council 

officials as well as four U.S. Senators and nine Representatives. 53From the 2009 University of Maryland and Zogby International poll of some 4,000 respondents, the slides of which can be found here: http://www.brookings.edu/∼/media/Files/events/2009/ 

0519—arab—opinion/2009_arab_public_opinion_poll.pdf. The BBG disputes the Zogby poll results and contends that viewer habits of watching multiple channels negate Zogby’s findings. 

The BBG contends that Alhurra places in the top 20 in 14 major markets and is #21 in Saudi 

Arabia. 

ALHURRA TV/RADIO SAWA—FINDING AND KEEPING AN AUDIENCE

One of the key PD products coming out of the BBG following 

9/11 was a determined focus on the Arabic-speaking world. VOA’s 

Arabic service was closed with that funding being used, plus substantial new monies from Congress, to create distinct Arabic-language radio and television surrogates for the region. As the most 

recent BBG commissioned research below suggests, there is both 

good news and bad news for U.S. government broadcasting efforts 

in the Middle East. Alhurra TV—launched in 2004—viewership 

seems to be on the rise, but it is difficult to compare this 

viewership with total audience viewership as the explosion of channels available in the Arabic world.51

President Obama’s decision to give his first interview on an Arabic station was not to Alhurra, but to one of its rivals, Al Arabiya, 

was brutally symbolic and not unnoticed in the blogosphere.52 An 

outside study from 2009 suggests that Alhurra is simply 

marginalized.53

24 

Total Audience of Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa 

(BBG Global Broadcasting) 


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Daily and Weekly Viewership of Alhurra 

(BBG Global Broadcasting) 


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Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa Weekly Audiences by Country 

(BBG Global Broadcasting) 


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53http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/media/AlHurraReport.pdf 55The BBG disputes many of these claims in its own evaluation of Alhurra (http:// 

www.bbg.gov/reports/others/Alhurra-Sawa_Research_Data_June20-2.pdf ) which suggested that, 

based on, ‘‘weekly audiences’’ and ‘‘Percent of adults viewing at least once in seven days’’ a much 

different picture. Another analysis commissioned by the BBG conducted by the Missouri School 

of Journalism, based on English translations of Alhurra broadcasts concluded, ‘‘Alhurra TV does 

most things right most of the time,’’ but then proceeded to note that ‘‘individual stories often 

lacked sufficient balance and thus could be perceived as delivering a biased message.’’ See: 

http://www.bbg.gov/reports/others/missourireport.pdf 56For a spirited defense of the creation of Alhurra, and the need to curtail VOA’s Short Wave 

English service, see former BBG Chairman Ken Tomlinson’s 2007 article in Arab Media and Society: http://www.arabmediasociety.com/articles/downloads/ 

20070514205552_AMS2_Kenneth_Y_Tomlinson.pdf; a lengthy analysis of Alhurra can be found 

here: http://www.propublica.org/feature/alhurra-middle-east-hearts-and-minds-622 

A 2008 study of Alhurra commissioned by the BBG and conducted throughout the Middle East by the University of Southern 

California’s Annenberg Center on Public Diplomacy, concluded the 

station’s lack of popularity among Arab viewers stemmed from a 

lack of credibility due to: 

• Lacked news and programming that distinguished it from 

other state-funded broadcasts; 

• Had weak journalistic skills, particularly technical, but also little balance in story reporting; and 

• A perception as biased towards Western slants, with six times 

more likely to be critical of the Arab perspective than of the 

Western viewpoint.53

This has lead to the perception of many in the region of Alhurra 

as nothing more than a propaganda tool of the United States rather than a go-to source for news and information.55 The fact that 

Alhurra is headquartered Springfield, VA, not in the region it covers, reinforces this perception.56 The lone Alhurra studio located 

outside the U.S., in Dubai, U.A.E., is unmarked, even though it is 

located in a building filled with other Arabic channels. 


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57Figures based on interviews with Arabic media experts. Al Jazeera budget figures are not 

publicly available and requests from the channel for such information were not responded to. 

BBG officials believe the figure is closer to $400 million. 58 Alhurra’s weekly schedule can be found in Appendix H. 59The impact of Al Youm on Alhurra’s viewership has, according to the BBG, not yet been 

measured and is not reflected in the earlier slides. 

With a budget of some $90 million, many critics of Alhurra say 

that continued funding will be wasted. They compare Al Jazeera’s 

Arabic budget of some $100 million (recently increased to some 

$140 million with the advent of Al Jazeera English) 57 with Al 

Jazeera’s market dominance. 

To address some of these issues, in March 2009, Alhurra began 

airing what it views as the first-of-its-kind show in the region—Al 

Youm (Arabic for ‘‘Today’’).58 Al Youm is a daily, live three-hour 

news show, Sunday through Thursday, modeled very much on its 

American namesake, that seeks to present the news in a more relaxed, conversational environment. Al Youm broadcasts from a professional, modern studio in Dubai (photos below). Al Youm is 

linked to MBN journalists based in studios in Cairo, Beirut, Jerusalem, and MBN headquarters in the U.S. from where they are 

projected onto a screen in the Dubai studio to interact with the 

hosts.59 While such a program no doubt has its merit in providing 

the station with a valuable product, Al Youm’s impact on Alhurra’s 

viewership have not yet been captured in polling. Additionally, in 

conversations with Al Youm broadcasters concern was expressed 

regarding their journalistic independence. Committee staff heard of 

incidents in which some of the broadcasters were told to ‘‘stay on 

message’’ when guests would go off-tangent with their comments, 

‘‘as if they didn’t trust us to handle the situation as professional 

journalists.’’ 

As the 2009 BBG slide above on ‘‘Audiences By Country’’ noted, 

Iraq is the one bright spot for Alhurra. A May 2010 poll of 3,000 

individuals from 18 provinces commissioned by the BBG suggests 

that Alhurra is indeed an important part of Iraqi life, with Alhurra 

now number one in terms of Stations Most Watched in the Last 

Week. The same poll also showed that Iraqis do not trust any 

broadcaster in particular, with Alhurra number three. 


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60 Critics of Sawa claim it ‘‘dumbs down’’ the news and creates more problems than it solves 

(http://arabmediasociety.sqgd.co.uk/articles/downloads/ 

20070514203154_AMS2_Laurie_Kassman.pdf); while others point out that, prior to Sawa, 98% 

of listeners in the Middle East had never heard of the Voice of America (http://www.afsa.org/ 

fsj/nov02/radio.pdf). 61To see a full list of Sawa stations and to listen to it live over the Internet visit: http:// 

www.radiosawa.com/english.aspx. 

In addition to Alhurra’s viewership, equally troubling is the reduction in listenership of Radio Sawa’s audience noted in the 

BBG’s earlier chart. Radio Sawa was revolutionary (and even considered heretical by some) when it first came on the air in March 

2002. The Board of Broadcasting Governors decided that in order 

to reach the largest demographic in the Arabic market, the ‘‘under 

35’’ group that comprises more than half the population, a break 

in the traditional Voice of America format was necessary. Thus, 

under the direction of then-BBG Board Member Norman Pattiz— 

founder of Westwood One, the largest radio network in the United 

States—Sawa focused on gaining market share through American 

and Arabic pop music—at the expense of VOA’s Arabic service, 

which was terminated.60 News is given in short 5-10 minute segments twice an hour (at 00:15 and 00:45) for a total of 7.5 hours 

of news a day, with the rest of the time devoted to music, both local 

and international hits.61 The creation of Sawa is a prime example 

of the value and impact the Board plays in the formulation and development of U.S. broadcasting policy. 

Sawa’s website, Twitter feed, and Facebook, meanwhile, keep its 

tech-savvy audience connected. Nonetheless, there is no avoiding 

the fact that Sawa’s audience numbers have declined over time. 

This is in spite of the fact that Sawa’s FM reach is impressive: 

every major metropolitan area from Rabat and Marrakech in Morocco to Khartoum, Sudan to Baghdad and Kirkuk in Iraq. 


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62 Recent research suggests Internet usage in the Arabic world is 17%, or some 56 million, 

see: http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=/data/opinion/2010/May/opinion_May132.xml§ion=opinion 63See Appendix I for a map of satellite systems used by the BBG. 

(However, there is no FM coverage in Cairo, the most populous 

city in the Arab world, as the Mubarak government prohibits any 

foreign-owned radio, forcing Sawa to reach Egypt, primarily Alexandria in the north, from Cyprus via an AM signal.) Some argue 

the audience decline is due in part because of its success, as other 

Arabic stations have also begun to test and cater to listeners’ musical tastes and offer the latest Western and regional releases. 

A May 2010 analysis of Arabic-language U.S., commercial and 

other foreign, state-owned broadcast organizations suggests that 

Sawa’s use of Facebook far outpaces the other major players.62

Arabic Language Sites 

MARKETING—A NECESSARY COMPONENT

AND COST TO REACH NEW AUDIENCES

The Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty are 

long established and their names well-recognized throughout the 

world. However, the proliferation of new services and stations, particularly in Iran, Afghanistan and the crowded media markets of 

the Middle East requires spending on advertising and promotion. 

For example, the following major satellite services cover all or portions of the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of South Asia, 

with many services overlapping and many households accessing 

multiple systems: 

• Arabsat—430 channels (carries Alhurra TV) 63

• Nilesat—470 channels (carries Alhurra TV) 

• AtlanticBird—280 channels with 50 Subscription channels 

• DigitalSkys—50 channels with 180 Subscription channels 

• Hotbird 6—225 channels with 110 Subscription channels 

• Hotbird 9—87 channels with 260 Subscription channels 


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64See p. 86 http://www.bbg.gov/reports/documents/BBGFY2011CONGBudgetSubmissionForInternetPost.pdf. 65MBN, RFA and RFE budget figures provided by BBG. 66 RFA has reported anecdotally that the regimes themselves, through government officials or 

state-controlled media attacks, drive audiences to its content. 

Many believe that appropriated funds for broadcasting should go 

to just that—broadcasting—and not be spent on advertising and 

promotion, but this is simply not realistic in today’s saturated 

media environment. While there was recently a significant increase 

in spending, according to the BBG’s FY2011 budget submission, 

Marketing and Program Placement will be cut by some $314,000.64

FY 2009 

FY 2010 

FY 2011 

$3,307,000 

$5,392,000 

$5,078,000 

Middle East Broadcasting has seen its marketing budget for 

Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa fluctuate wildly: 

FY2005 

FY2006 

FY2007 

FY 2008 

FY2009 

FY2010 

FY2011 (req.) 

$6,000 

$4,000 

$104,000 

$5,000 

$1,250,000 

$512,000 

$521,000 

In the meantime, Radio Free Asia’s marketing budget has never 

exceeded $7,000 in spite of the ‘‘billion plus’’ audience it is tasked 

with trying to reach. Radio Free Europe’s budget topped $1 million 

for the first time in 2010, having averaged some $850,000 for 

2005–2009, providing far greater consistency.65

Regardless of their funding levels, each entity has established 

creative methods of promotion and marketing. RFE’s Radio Azadi 

promotional efforts in Afghanistan have included distribution of radios with their logo and station number, billboards and the co-sponsorship of the Afghan Presidential debates (along with RTA—Radio 

and Television Afghanistan). RFE’s Azerbaijan service has, in essence, gone back to the future by publishing a weekly newspaper 

that is distributed for free at subway stations; while its Belarus 

service publishes books and CDs of authors and poets who have 

been banned by the government. RFA has used its limited marketing resources to target the impoverished and informationstarved northwestern Cambodia with school notebooks, raincoats, 

hats and radios with their logo, listening times and frequencies.66

VOA’s Zimbabwe service had perhaps one of the most creative 

marketing tools in that repressive society—times and frequencies 

were printed on tooth brushes and handed out, thus providing both 

a much needed commodity in that improvised country as well as 

needed broadcast information in a form easily concealed from 

President Mugabe’s repressive regime. 

33 

Presidential Debate in Afghanistan moderated by Akbar Ayazi, Director of RFE/RL’s 

Radio Azadi (with RFE/RL’s Torch logo interspersed between RTA’s in background 


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BBG Marketing and Promotion: VOA’s Zimbabwe toothbrush, RFE/RL’s Belarusian 

poetry publications, RFE/RL’s radio, Alhurra’s billboard in Jeddah 


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67 BBC May 24, 2010 press release http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2010/ 

05_may/24/wsnews.shtml. 

68 http://rt.com/USA.html ; New York on channel. 135 (Time Warner), in Los Angeles on ch. 

236 (Time Warner) and in the Washington, DC area on ch. 274 (Comcast),ch. 34 (RCN), ch. 455 

(Fios), ch. 474 (Cox). 69http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2010-04-30-china-english-tv—N.htm 70http://www.france24.com/en/how-to-watch-on-tv; http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/ 

0,,1830857,00.html 71 Buckeye Cable (Toledo, OH), Burlington Cable (Burlington, VT), GlobeCast World TV Link 

TV (Direct TV, Channel—375/Dish Network, Channel - 9410), Washington Cable (Washington, 

DC), MHz Networks (Washington, DC); see http://english.aljazeera.net/watchaje/ 

20091022172112636517.html for their locations world-wide. 

THE COMPETITION—BROADCASTING THROUGHOUT THE USA 

American consumers have also seen an explosion in the number 

of television and satellite and terrestrial radio stations available to 

them, and foreign governments have not hesitated to enter the 

market. British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) television is available in almost every major market, and BBC radio recently crowed 

about its U.S. audience increasing by 600,000.67 Russia Today’s 

English news is now available on cable services in New York City, 

Los Angeles and Washington, DC.68 China’s largest media corporation, Xinhua announced at the end of April 2010, that it is launching a 24-hour English news channel, and its CCTV is already available in major markets (and as noted earlier has begun to broadcast 

its radio from inside the United States).69 France 24’s 30 minute 

newscasts are carried on U.S. affiliates in more than 15 states from 

California to Virginia, and Germany’s Deutsche Welle English 

news is carried on Time Warner, Verizon FIOS and Comcast services.70 Al Jazeera English is one of the few having difficulty gaining access to U.S. markets, with only a handful of cable companies 

carrying it.71 Nonetheless, as noted in the May 2010 analysis 

below, while not all the Channel Views and Video Uploads occur 

in the United States, it is clear that Al Jazeera English is a major 

player in this area. 

English Language Sites 


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72Smith-Mundt information and analysis can be found here: http://mountainrunner.us/smithmundt.html and http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/19/persuasive-politics/ 73Though, the BBG does offer instructions ‘‘Improving Shortwave Reception’’ on its website 

http://www.bbg.gov/office/engineering/reduce-interference.html. 74See p. 74 http://www.bbg.gov/reports/documents/BBGFY2011CONGBudgetSubmissionForInternetPost.pdf; and http://mt-shortwave.blogspot.com/2010/02/politicans-and-press-react-toproposed.html for local impact. The BBG notes that it will retain two transmission sites in the 

Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. 75The BBC estimated it lost 7 million shortwave listeners in Bangladesh and 8.2 million listeners in India, while noting the aforementioned increased of 600,000, but also some 1.4 million 

in Tanzania, both as a result of FM or AM broadcasts. http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/ 

pressreleases/stories/2010/05—may/24/wsnews.shtml. 76 Cambodia is the one exception, which has allowed RFA an internal, FM frequency. 

Each of these same channels is available online and many have 

live, streaming video. Additionally, Al Jazeera Arabic is viewable 

in the U.S. on various U.S. based satellite subscription providers 

that offer foreign language packages, but Alhurra TV is on the two 

services that are not available here—Arabsat and Nilesat (which 

are also the most popular in the Middle East). The Smith-Mundt 

Act expressly prohibits U.S. government programming from being 

accessed by American citizens. 

Originally written in the days before cable television, and then 

amended in the days before the Internet, many argue the law is 

even self-defeating if recent Arabic-speaking immigrants to the 

U.S. have easy access to Al Jazeera but not Alhurra. A similar 

Smith-Mundt objection was made by the BBG when a Somali community in the Midwest wanted permission to re-broadcast VOA Somali programming to recent immigrants.72

Smith-Mundt issues were again raised following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti when Sirius/XM wanted to donate its radios to Haiti 

and provide an unused frequency to the BBG and the Defense Department for broadcasts to the country. Concerns were raised that, 

even though the station would not be advertised in the United 

States and only Creole-speakers would be able to understand the 

information and public service announcements should they encounter it, it would violate the law. It is time to recognize the anachronistic nature of the legislation in light of new technologies and how 

it hamstrings our own government while foreign governments and 

broadcasters have no similar impediments. 

SHORT WAVE—LAST GASP OR THE FINAL FRONTIER

Advancements in technologies, increased standards of living 

along with higher Gross Domestic Products have all resulted in an 

ever-increasing move away from radio, particularly shortwave, and 

towards more visual mediums of television and the Internet.73 As 

such, the BBG is proposing in its FY2011 budget closing the only 

remaining domestic, U.S. government-operated shortwave facility 

(located in Greenville, NC) for a proposed savings of more than $3 

million.74 The United States is not the only service seeing declining 

shortwave listenership; the BBC noted in May 2010 that it ‘‘.lost 

20 million shortwave listeners during the year, reflecting the increasing global decline in the medium.’’75

Nonetheless, Radio Free Asia is almost completely dependent on 

shortwave as most nations it seeks to reach have refused to broadcast any RFA transmissions from within their borders.76 Additionally, in January 2010 RFE/RL launched Radio ‘‘Mashaal’’ 

37 

77 Because of the heavily mountainous terrain Mashaal uses SW, AM and FM to ensure maximum coverage. 78http://kimelli.nfshost.com/index.php?id=7964; http://kimelli.nfshost.com/index.php?id=8304. 79Percentages taken from a 2009 BBG Congressional presentation. 

(‘‘Torch’’)—which, in addition to AM, is a shortwave station (beaming into the area on SW from Kuwait, Thailand and Sri Lanka) 

reaching the Pashto-speaking tribes that straddle the Afghanistan/ 

Pakistan border. Mashaal currently broadcasts 6 original hours/day 

(which are then repeated).77 Mashaal also shares the same AM frequency with VOA’s Radio ‘‘Deewa’’ (‘‘Light’’) which broadcasts the 

rest of the day. Deewa and Mashaal are transmitted from a station 

in Afghanistan located near the border with Pakistan. Opening the 

station was a contentious issue which took years to resolve. A similar arrangement with the Pakistani government, to allow broadcasts from Peshawar in order to ensure maximum border coverage, 

was equally difficult and resulted in them broadcasting VOA’s 

Deewa in AM for only two months (Mashaal was not yet on the 

air). Some say the closure was due to Taliban threats to the station, others because the government rescinded the license.78

Africa is still a major region for shortwave due to vast distances 

and high cost of repeater towers. In 2009, the BBG estimated that, 

in fact, Africa is its largest single audience by region, based on the 

percentage of total unduplicated weekly audience among adults.79

Weekly Audience Among Adults 

(percent) 

Africa — 29 

MidEast/N.Africa — 21 

West Asia — 16 

South Asia — 10 

Former Soviet — 7 

South East Asia — 5 

Balkans — 4 

East Asia — 3 

Caucuses — 2 

Central Asia — 2 

Latin America — 1 

These numbers are particularly staggering given that Africa has 

no U.S. surrogate dedicated to it, and has virtually no BBG TV programming, along with very low Internet penetration. The power of 

VOA radio in Africa is therefore enormous. 

As the broadcast charts located in the Index demonstrate, the 

BBG is still heavily reliant on shortwave in various regions 

throughout the globe. Africa in particular is a major region for 

shortwave due to vast distances and high cost of repeater towers. 

The BBG provided the following information regarding its shortwave operations. 

38 

U.S. Shortwave Stations Closed in the Last 25 years 

(Location/Year Closed) 

Dixon, California — 1988 

Bethany, Ohio — 1994 

Delano, California — 2007 

Greenville, NC — 2010 (proposed) 

Current BBG Shortwave Transmission Stations 

Tinang, Philippines 

Saipan, Northern Marianas 

Udorn, Thailand 

Biblis, Germany 

Iranawila, Sri Lanka 

Lampertheim, Germany 

Kuwait 

Greenville, North Carolina 

Tinian, Northern Marianas 

Sao Tome 

Botswana 

Current BBG Leased Shortwave Transmission Services 

from These Countries 

Germany 

United Kingdom 

Palau 

Tajikistan 

Madagascar 

Russia 

Lithuania 

Ascension Island 

Mongolia 

United Arab Emirates 

Vatican 

Bonaire 

South Africa 

39 

80 VOA/CRI data compiled from the World Radio Television Handbook for these years http:// 

www.wrth.com/. See also, the Heritage Foundation ‘‘Don’t Silence Voice of America:’’ http:// 

www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/05/Dont-Silence-Voice-of-America. 

Lastly, while the U.S. has been jettisoning its shortwave frequencies, with VOA cutting some 60 frequencies in the last 10 

years, China has been doing the exact opposite, almost doubling its 

stations in the same period as indicated in the chart below.80 Supporters of U.S. shortwave programming contend that we are ceding 

valuable assets to China while others contend the frequencies are 

redundant due to the nature of short wave broadcasting methods. 

Shortwave Frequencies 2000–2010 

Voice of America and China Radio International 


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A P P E N D I X E S 

(43) 

Appendix A.—Country-by-Country 

Analysis of the BBG Products 

(45) 

Appendix A (Africa) 

Country Population 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2004 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2009 Voices of America (VOA) 

Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN) 

Angola 12,799,293 142 132 (Portuguese; SW, satellite: 10.5 h/ 

wk; Internet) 

Benin 8,791,832 71 71 (French; SW, satellite: 24.5 h/wk; 

Internet) 

Botswana 1,990,876 71 78 (English; SW: 9.5 h/wk; Internet) Burkina Faso 15,746,232 88 86 (French; SW, satellite: 24.5 h/wk; 

Internet) 

Burundi 9,511,330 165 163 (Kinyarwanda/Kirundi, SW: 7 h/wk; 

French, SW, satellite: 24.5 h/wk; Swahili, SW: 7 h/wk; Internet) 

Cameroon 18,879,301 147 140 (French; SW, satellite: 24.5 h/wk; 

Internet) 

Cape Verde 499,796 80 60 (Portuguese; SW: 10.5 h/wk; Internet) Central African Republic 4,511,488 135 132 (French; SW, satellite: 24.5 h/wk; 

Internet) 

46 

Appendix A (Africa)—Continued 

Country Population 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2004 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2009 Voices of America (VOA) 

Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN) 

Chad 10,329,208 161 165 (Kinyarwanda/Kirundi, SW: 7 h/wk; 

French, SW, satellite: 24.5 h/wk; Internet) 

Comoros 752,438 100 101 (French; SW, satellite: 24.5 h/wk; 

Internet) 

Congo, Democratic Rep. of 

the 

68,692,542 173 175 (Kinyarwanda/Kirundi, SW: 7 h/wk; 

French, SW, satellite: 24.5 h/wk; Swahili, SW: 7 h/wk; Internet) 

Congo, Republic of the 4,012,809 114 109 (French; SW, satellite: 24.5 h/wk; 

Internet) 

Cote d’Ivoire 20,617,068 140 148 (French; SW, satellite: 24.5 h/wk; 

Internet) 

Djibouti 516,055 142 160 (Amharic/Tigrigna/Oromiffa; SW: 12 

h/wk; Internet) 

Radio Sawa (Arabic; FM, MW, satellite: 24 h/day; Internet), 

Alhurra TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/day; Internet) 

Equatorial Guinea 633,441 186 187 

47 

Eritrea 5,647,168 186 190 (Amharic/Tigrigna/Oromiffa; SW: 12 

h/wk; Internet) 

Ethiopia 85,237,338 142 165 (Amharic/Tigrigna/Oromiffa; SW: 12 

h/wk; Internet) 

Gabon 1,514,993 125 153 (French; SW, satellite: 24.5 h/wk; 

Internet) 

Gambia, The 1,778,081 127 172 (English; SW: 9.5 h/wk; Internet) Ghana 23,887,812 64 53 (English; SW: 9.5 h/wk; Internet) Guinea 10,057,975 156 147 (French; SW, satellite: 24.5 h/wk; 

Internet) 

Guinea-Bissau 1,533,964 127 107 (Portuguese; SW: 10.5 h/wk; Internet) Kenya 39,002,772 122 128 (Swahili, SW: 7 h/wk; English, SW: 

9.5 h/wk; Internet) 

Lesotho 2,130,819 91 99 (English; SW: 9.5 h/wk; Internet) Liberia 3,441,790 165 138 (English; SW: 9.5 h/wk; Internet) Madagascar 20,653,556 93 106 (French; SW, satellite: 24.5 h/wk; 

Internet) 

Malawi 15,028,757 107 118 (English; SW: 9.5 h/wk; Internet) 

48 

Appendix A (Africa)—Continued 

Country Population 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2004 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2009 Voices of America (VOA) 

Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN) 

Mali 13,443,225 62 53 (French; SW, satellite: 24.5 h/wk; 

Internet) 

Mauritania 3,129,486 135 124 (French; SW, satellite: 24.5 h/wk; 

Internet) 

Alhurra TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Mauritius 1,284,264 60 53 (French; SW, satellite: 24.5 h/wk; 

Internet) 

Mozambique 21,669,278 100 86 (Portuguese; SW: 10.5 h/wk; Internet) Namibia 2,108,665 75 66 (English; SW: 9.5 h/wk; Internet) Niger 15,306,252 118 140 (Hausa, SW: 13 h/wk; French, SW, 

satellite: 24.5 h/wk; Internet) 

Nigeria 149,229,090 111 113 (Hausa, SW: 13 h/wk; English, SW: 

9.5 h/wk; Internet) 

Rwanda 10,746,311 179 181 (Kinyarwanda/Kirundi, SW: 7 h/wk; 

French, SW, satellite: 24.5 h/wk; Swahili, SW: 7 h/wk; Internet) 

49 

Sao Tome and Principe 212,679 64 60 (Portuguese; SW: 10.5 h/wk; Internet) Senegal 13,711,597 84 109 (French; SW, satellite: 24.5 h/wk; 

Internet) 

Seychelles 87,476 107 125 (French; SW, satellite: 24.5 h/wk; 

Internet) 

Sierra Leone 5,132,138 120 118 (English; SW: 9.5 h/wk; Internet) Somalia 9,832,017 173 180 (Somali; SW: 24.5 h/wk; Internet) Alhurra TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

South Africa 49,052,489 55 66 (French; SW, satellite: 24.5 h/wk; 

Internet) 

Sudan 41,087,825 184 168 (English; SW: 9.5 h/wk; Internet) Radio Sawa (Arabic; FM, MW, satellite: 24 h/day; Internet), 

Alhurra TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/day; Internet), Afia Darfur (Arabic; SW: 90 minutes a day; Internet) 

Swaziland 1,337,186 169 165 (English; SW: 9.5 h/wk; Internet) Tanzania 41,048,532 106 101 (Swahili, SW: 7 h/wk; English, SW: 

9.5 h/wk; Internet) 

Togo 6,031,808 170 158 (French; SW, satellite: 24.5 h/wk; 

Internet) 

50 

Appendix A (Africa)—Continued 

Country Population 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2004 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2009 Voices of America (VOA) 

Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN) 

Uganda 32,369,558 98 109 (Swahili, SW: 7 h/wk; English, SW: 

9.5 h/wk; Internet) 

Zambia 11,862,740 127 143 (English; SW: 9.5 h/wk; Internet) Zimbabwe 11,392,629 186 186 (Zimbabwe/Shona/Ndebele; English; 

SW: 9.5 h/wk; Internet) 

51 

Appendix A (East Asia/Pacific) 

Country Population 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2004 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2009 Voices of America (VOA) Radio Free Asia 

Australia 21,262,641 18 38 Brunei 388,190 161 163 (Indonesian; SW, satellite: 63.33 h/ 

wk; Internet) 

Burma 48,137,741 190 193 (Burmese; SW, satellite: 66.5 h/wk; 

Internet) 

(Burmese; SW, satellite: 4 h/day; 

Internet) 

Cambodia 14,494,293 127 132 (Khmer; SW, satellite: 11.5 h/wk; 

Internet) 

(Khmer; SW, FM, satellite: 2 h/day; 

Internet) 

China 1,338,612,968 173 181 (Mandarin, SW, satellite: 91 h/wk; 

Cantonese, SW, satellite: 14.57 h/wk; Internet) 

(Cantonese, SW, satellite: 2 h/day; 

Mandarin, SW, MW, satellite: 12 h/day; Tibetan, SW, satellite: 10 h/day; Uyghur, SW, satellite: 2 h/day; Internet) 

Fiji 944,720 68 84 Hong Kong 7,055,071 — 75 (Cantonese; SW, satellite: 14.57 h/ 

wk; Internet) 

Indonesia 240,271,522 117 113 (Indonesian; SW, satellite: 63.33 h/ 

wk; Internet) 

52 

Appendix A (East Asia/Pacific)—Continued 

Country Population 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2004 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2009 Voices of America (VOA) Radio Free Asia 

Japan 127,078,679 33 33 Kiribati 112,850 62 59 Korea, North 22,665,345 193 195 (Korean; SW: 35 h/wk; Internet) (Korean; SW, MW, satellite: 5 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Korea, South 48,508,972 68 66 (Korean; SW: 35 h/wk; Internet) Laos 6,834,345 179 184 (Lao; SW: 3.5 h/wk; Internet) (Lao; SW, satellite: 2 h/day; Internet) Malaysia 25,715,819 154 143 Marshall Islands 64,522 11 21 Micronesia 107,434 37 33 Mongolia 3,041,142 80 86 Nauru 14,019 57 60 New Zealand 4,213,418 8 11 Palau 20,796 9 11 

53 

Papua New Guinea 5,940,775 57 53 Philippines 97,976,603 75 96 Samoa 219,998 55 63 Singapore 4,657,542 135 151 Solomon Islands 595,613 71 66 Taiwan 22,974,347 50 43 (Mandarin, SW, satellite: 91 h/wk; 

Cantonese, SW, satellite, 14.57 h/wk; Internet) 

Thailand 65,998,436 88 122 (Thai, SW, satellite: 9.4 h/wk; Burmese, SW, satellite: 66.5 h/wk; 

Internet) 

Timor-L’este 1,131,612 68 78 Tonga 120,898 98 73 Tuvalu 12,373 37 53 Vanuatu 218,519 50 43 Vietnam 88,576,758 179 178 (Vietnamese; SW: 10.5 h/wk; Internet) (Vietnamese; SW, MW, satellite: 2 h/day; Internet) 

54 

Appendix A (Europe) 

Country Population 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2004 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2009 

Voices of America 

(VOA) 

Middle East Broadcasting Networks 

(MBN) 

Radio Free Europe/ 

Radio Liberty 

Albania 3,639,453 104 101 (Albanian; SW, satellite: 14.48 h/wk; 

Internet) 

Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Andorra 83,888 15 8 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Armenia 2,967,004 135 151 (Armenian; satellite: 

2.83 h/wk; Internet) 

(Armenian; satellite: 

5.5 h/day; Internet) 

Austria 8,210,281 50 33 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Azerbaijan 8,238,672 156 168 (Azerbaijani; SW, satellite: 9.66 h/wk; 

Internet) 

(Azeri; SW, satellite: 10 

h/day; Internet) 

Belarus 9,648,533 182 188 Internet (Russian) Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

(Belarusian; SW, MW, 

satellite: 8 h/day; Internet) 

55 

Belgium 10,414,336 4 6 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Bosnia and Herzegovina 4,613,414 104 98 (Bosnian; satellite: 

2.75 h/wk; Internet) 

Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

(Bosnian; satellite: 12 

h/week; Internet) 

Bulgaria 7,204,687 78 76 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Croatia 4,489,409 84 81 (Croatian; SW, satellite: 6.19 h/wk; 

Internet) 

Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Cyprus 1,084,748 33 38 (Greek; SW, satellite: 

3.3 h/wk; Internet) 

Radio Sawa (Arabic; 

MW, satellite: 24 h/ day; Internet), Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/day; Internet) 

Czech Republic 10,211,904 50 24 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Denmark 5,500,510 1 4 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

56 

Appendix A (Europe)—Continued 

Country Population 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2004 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2009 

Voices of America 

(VOA) 

Middle East Broadcasting Networks 

(MBN) 

Radio Free Europe/ 

Radio Liberty 

Estonia 1,299,371 28 14 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Finland 5,250,275 4 2 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

France 64,057,792 37 38 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Georgia 4,615,807 114 128 (Georgian; SW: 14 h/ 

wk; Internet) 

Radio Tavisupleba 

(Georgian; satellite: 4 h/day; Georgian Public TV: 1 h/week; Internet) 

Germany 82,329,758 25 18 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

57 

Greece 10,737,428 64 63 (Greek; SW, satellite: 

3.3 h/wk; Internet) 

Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Holy See 826 — — Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Hungary 9,905,596 45 33 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Iceland 306,694 1 1 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Ireland 4,203,200 25 14 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Italy 58,126,212 74 73 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Kosovo 1,804,838 — — (Albanian; SW, satellite: 14.48 h/wk; 

Internet) 

(Serbian, Albanian; 

satellite: 14 h/week; Internet) 

Latvia 2,231,503 28 43 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

58 

Appendix A (Europe)—Continued 

Country Population 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2004 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2009 

Voices of America 

(VOA) 

Middle East Broadcasting Networks 

(MBN) 

Radio Free Europe/ 

Radio Liberty 

Liechtenstein 34,761 11 11 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Lithuania 3,555,179 33 24 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Luxembourg 491,775 11 6 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Macedonia 2,066,718 111 98 (Macedonian, satellite: 

0.75 h/wk; Albanian, SW, satellite: 14.48 h/wk; Internet) 

Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

(Macedonian; satellite: 

radio 12 h/week, TV 10 min/week; Internet) 

Malta 405,165 23 38 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

59 

Moldova 4,320,748 127 148 (Russian; satellite: 

1.25 h/wk; Internet) 

(Romanian; SW, satellite: 1 h/day; 

Internet) 

Monaco 32,965 15 18 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Montenegro 672,180 91 78 (Serbian, 7.3 h/wk; Albanian, SW, satellite: 14.48 h/wk; 

Internet) 

Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

(Montenegrin; satellite: 

3.5 h/week; Internet) 

Netherlands 16,715,999 11 8 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Norway 4,660,539 4 2 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Poland 38,482,919 37 49 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Portugal 10,707,924 18 18 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Romania 22,215,421 103 92 

60 

Appendix A (Europe)—Continued 

Country Population 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2004 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2009 

Voices of America 

(VOA) 

Middle East Broadcasting Networks 

(MBN) 

Radio Free Europe/ 

Radio Liberty 

Russia 140,041,247 147 174 (Russian; satellite: 

1.25 h/wk; Internet) 

(Russian; SW, satellite: 

24 h/day; Internet) 

San Marino 30,167 18 21 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Serbia 7,379,339 91 83 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

(Serbian; satellite: 14 

h/week; Internet) 

Slovakia 5,463,046 47 43 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Slovenia 2,005,692 37 49 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Spain 40,525,002 37 49 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

61 

Sweden 9,059,651 1 4 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Switzerland 7,604,467 4 8 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Turkey 76,805,524 107 101 (Turkish; SW, satellite: 

6.25 h/wk; Internet) 

Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Ukraine 45,700,395 150 115 (Ukranian; satellite: 

3.14 h/wk; Internet) 

Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

Radio Svoboda 

(Ukranian; satellite: 2.5 h/day; Internet) 

United Kingdom 61,113,205 37 27 Alhurra Europe TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/ 

day; Internet) 

62 

Appendix A (Near East Asia/Middle East) 

Country Population 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2004 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2009 

Voices of America 

(VOA) 

Middle East Broadcasting Networks 

(MBN) 

Radio Free Europe/ 

Radio Liberty 

Algeria 34,178,188 127 136 (French; SW, satellite: 

24.5 h/wk; Internet) 

Alhurra TV (Arabic; 

satellite: 24 h/day; Internet) 

Bahrain 728,709 155 156 Radio Sawa (Arabic; 

FM, MW, satellite: 24 h/day; Internet), Alhurra TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/day; Internet) 

Egypt 78,866,635 168 128 Radio Sawa (Arabic; 

MW, satellite: 24 h/ day; Internet), Alhurra TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/day; Internet) 

Iran 66,429,284 171 181 Persian News Network 

(Farsi; SW, satellite: 175 h/wk; Internet), (Kurdish; SW: 28 h/ wk; Internet) 

Alhurra TV (Arabic; 

satellite: 24 h/day; Internet) 

Radio Farda (Farsi; 

SW, MW, satellite: 24 h/day; Internet) 

63 

Iraq 28,945,569 142 148 (Kurdish; SW: 28 h/wk; 

Internet) 

Radio Sawa (Arabic; 

FM, MW, satellite: 24 h/day; Internet), Alhurra TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/day; Internet) 

*Radio Free Iraq (Arabic; MW, satellite: 

17 h/day; Internet) 

Israel 7,233,701 64 71 Radio Sawa (Arabic; 

MW, satellite: 24 h/ day; Internet), Alhurra TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/day; Internet) 

Jordan 6,269,285 127 140 Radio Sawa (Arabic; 

FM, MW, satellite: 24 h/day; Internet), Alhurra TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/day; Internet) 

Kuwait 2,692,526 119 115 Radio Sawa (Arabic; 

FM, MW, satellite: 24 h/day; Internet), Alhurra TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/day; Internet) 

64 

Appendix A (Near East Asia/Middle East)—Continued 

Country Population 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2004 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2009 

Voices of America 

(VOA) 

Middle East Broadcasting Networks 

(MBN) 

Radio Free Europe/ 

Radio Liberty 

Lebanon 4,017,095 142 118 Radio Sawa (Arabic; 

FM, MW, satellite: 24 h/day; Internet), Alhurra TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/day; Internet) 

Libya 6,324,357 189 190 Alhurra TV (Arabic; 

satellite: 24 h/day; Internet) 

Morocco 31,285,174 123 140 Radio Sawa (Arabic; 

FM, satellite: 24 h/ day; Internet), Alhurra TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/day; Internet) 

Oman 3,418,085 161 156 Radio Sawa (Arabic; 

MW, satellite: 24 h/ day; Internet), Alhurra TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/day; Internet) 

65 

Palestinian Territories 4,013,126 185 184 Radio Sawa (Arabic; 

FM, MW, satellite: 24 h/day; Internet), Alhurra TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/day; Internet) 

Qatar 833,285 123 143 Radio Sawa (Arabic; 

FM, MW, satellite: 24 h/day; Internet), Alhurra TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/day; Internet) 

Saudi Arabia 28,686,633 173 176 Radio Sawa (Arabic; 

MW, satellite: 24 h/ day; Internet), Alhurra TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/day; Internet) 

Syria 21,762,978 173 178 (Kurdish; SW: 28 h/wk; 

Internet) 

Radio Sawa (Arabic; 

MW, satellite: 24 h/ day; Internet), Alhurra TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/day; Internet) 

Tunisia 10,486,339 173 176 Alhurra TV (Arabic; 

satellite: 24 h/day; Internet) 

66 

Appendix A (Near East Asia/Middle East)—Continued 

Country Population 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2004 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2009 

Voices of America 

(VOA) 

Middle East Broadcasting Networks 

(MBN) 

Radio Free Europe/ 

Radio Liberty 

United Arab Emirates 4,798,491 165 153 Radio Sawa (Arabic; 

FM, MW, satellite: 24 h/day; Internet), Alhurra TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/day; Internet) 

Yemen 22,858,238 147 172 Radio Sawa (Arabic; 

MW, satellite: 24 h/ day; Internet), Alhurra TV (Arabic; satellite: 24 h/day; Internet) 

67 

Appendix A (South Central Asia) 

Country Population 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2004 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2009 

Voices of America 

(VOA) 

Middle East Broadcasting Networks 

(MBN) 

Radio Free Europe/ 

Radio Liberty 

Afghanistan 28,395,716 159 162 Radio Ashna (1 hour, 

Pashto followed by 1 hour, Dari for 12 total hours/day; SW, AM, FM), TV Ashna (30 mins Pashto/30 mins Dari; 1 hour/ day), Radio Deewa (Pashto; SW, AM, FM: 168 h/wk; Internet) 

Alhurra TV (Arabic; 

satellite: 24 h/day; Internet) 

Radio Free Afghanistan/Radio Azadi 

(Pashto, Dari; FM, SW, satellite: 12 h/ day; Internet) 

Bangladesh 156,050,883 150 138 (Bangla; SW, satellite: 

11.7 h/wk; Internet) 

Bhutan 691,141 150 132 (Tibetan; SW, satellite: 

70 h/wk; Internet) 

India 1,156,897,766 93 76 TV (Hindi, 3 min/wk); 

Internet 

68 

Appendix A (South Central Asia)—Continued 

Country Population 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2004 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2009 

Voices of America 

(VOA) 

Middle East Broadcasting Networks 

(MBN) 

Radio Free Europe/ 

Radio Liberty 

Kazakhstan 15,399,437 161 168 Internet (Russian) Radio Azattyq (Kazakh, 

Russian; SW, satellite: 2 h/day; Internet) 

Kyrgyz Republic 5,431,747 156 158 Internet (Russian) Radio Azattyq (Kyrgyz; 

SW, satellite: 6 h/ day; private cable TV: 2 weekly shows; Internet) 

Maldives 396,334 135 118 Nepal 28,563,377 140 122 Pakistan 174,578,558 121 136 Radio Aap Ki Dunyaa 

(Urdu; SW, satellite: 96 h/wk; Internet), Radio Deewa (Pashto; SW: 168 h/ wk; Internet) 

Alhurra TV (Arabic; 

satellite: 24 h/day; Internet) 

Radio Mashaal 

(Pashto; AM, FM, SW, satellite: 2 h/ day; Internet) 

Sri Lanka 21,324,791 111 155 

69 

Tajikistan 7,349,145 160 168 Internet (Russian) (Tajik; SW, satellite: 6 

h/day; Internet) 

Turkmenistan 4,884,887 190 193 (Turkmen; SW, MW, 

satellite: 6 h/day; Internet) 

Uzbekistan 27,606,007 182 189 (Uzbek; SW, satellite: 

4.5 h/wk; Internet) 

Radio Ozodlik (Uzbek; 

MW, SW, satellite: 6 h/day; Internet) 

70 

Appendix A (Western Hemisphere/Latin America) 

Country Population 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2004 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2009 Voices of America (VOA) 

Office of Cuba Broadcasting 

(OCB) 

Antigua and Barbuda 85,632 97 81 Argentina 40,913,584 78 100 (Spanish; SW, satellite: 39.75 h/ 

wk; Internet) 

Aruba 103,065 — — Bahamas, The 307,552 18 32 Barbados 284,589 28 27 Belize 307,899 49 33 Bermuda 67,837 — — Bolivia 9,775,246 84 89 (Spanish; SW, satellite: 39.75 h/ 

wk; Internet) 

Brazil 198,739,269 80 89 Canada 33,487,208 23 27 Cayman Islands 49,035 — — 

71 

Chile 16,601,707 50 63 (Spanish; SW, satellite: 39.75 h/ 

wk; Internet) 

Colombia 43,677,372 127 125 (Spanish; SW, satellite: 39.75 h/ 

wk; Internet) 

Costa Rica 4,253,877 37 27 (Spanish; SW, satellite: 39.75 h/ 

wk; Internet) 

Cuba 11,451,652 192 190 (Spanish; SW, satellite: 39.75 h/ 

wk; Internet) 

Radio & TV Marti (Spanish; SW, 

MW: 24 h/day; satellite TV: 8 h/ day; Internet) 

Dominica 72,660 28 38 Dominican Republic 9,650,054 88 84 (Spanish; SW, satellite: 39.75 h/ 

wk; Internet) 

Ecuador 14,573,101 95 92 (Spanish; SW, satellite: 39.75 h/ 

wk; Internet) 

El Salvador 7,185,218 95 89 (Spanish; SW, satellite: 39.75 h/ 

wk; Internet) 

Grenada 90,739 25 49 Guatemala 13,276,517 125 128 (Spanish; SW, satellite: 39.75 h/ 

wk; Internet) 

Guyana 752,940 45 66 

72 

Appendix A (Western Hemisphere/Latin America)—Continued 

Country Population 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2004 

Freedom House 

Press Ranking 

2009 Voices of America (VOA) 

Office of Cuba Broadcasting 

(OCB) 

Haiti 9,035,536 171 109 (Creole; SW: 10 h/wk; Internet) Honduras 7,833,696 107 107 (Spanish; SW, satellite: 39.75 h/ 

wk; Internet) 

Jamaica 2,825,928 28 14 Mexico 111,211,789 80 115 (Spanish; SW, satellite: 39.75 h/ 

wk; Internet) 

Netherlands Antilles 227,049 — — (Spanish; SW, satellite: 39.75 h/ 

wk; Internet) 

Nicaragua 5,891,199 84 96 (Spanish; SW, satellite: 39.75 h/ 

wk; Internet) 

Panama 3,360,474 100 92 (Spanish; SW, satellite: 39.75 h/ 

wk; Internet) 

Paraguay 6,995,655 114 125 (Spanish; SW, satellite: 39.75 h/ 

wk; Internet) 

Peru 29,546,963 75 92 (Spanish; SW, satellite: 39.75 h/ 

wk; Internet) 

73 

St. Kitts and Nevis 40,131 47 27 St. Lucia 160,267 9 14 St. Vincent and the Grenadines 104,574 18 21 Suriname 481,267 33 43 Trinidad and Tobago 1,229,953 57 43 Uruguay 3,494,382 60 53 (Spanish; SW, satellite: 39.75 h/ 

wk; Internet) 

Venezuela 26,814,843 150 160 (Spanish; SW, satellite: 39.75 h/ 

wk; Internet) 

(75) 

Appendix B.—BBG Broadcast Languages 

Global 

English 

Special English and English to Africa 

Eastern & Central Europe 

Albanian 

Bosnian 

Croatian 

Greek 

Macedonian 

Montenegrin 

Romanian 

Serbian 

Eurasia 

Armenian 

Avar 

Azerbaijani 

Bashkir 

Belarusian 

Chechen 

Circassian 

Crimean Tatar 

Georgian 

Russian 

Tatar 

Ukrainian 

Central Asia 

Kazakh 

Kyrgyz 

Tajik 

Turkmen 

Uzbek 

East Asia 

Burmese 

Cantonese 

Indonesian 

Khmer 

Korean 

Lao 

Mandarin 

Thai 

Tibetan 

76 

Uyghur 

Vietnamese 

South Asia 

Bangla 

Dari 

Hindi 

Pashto 

Urdu 

Africa 

Afan Oromo 

Amharic 

French to Africa 

Hausa 

Kinyarwanda 

Kirundi 

Ndebele 

Portuguese to Africa 

Shona 

Somali 

Swahili 

Tigrigna 

Near East/North Africa 

Arabic 

Kurdish 

Persian 

Turkish 

Latin America 

Creole 

Spanish 

(77) 

Appendix C.—Broadcasting Board of Governors 

Entity Heads 

78 

International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) Directors 

IBB Directors Dates of Service Successor (w/starting date) Time Served 

Austin, Danforth (Acting Deputy) Aug 2007 to Present 2 yrs 10 mos (as of 6/25/2010) Moore, George (Deputy) Jun 2006 to Aug 2007 Austin (Aug 2007) 1 yr 2 mo Cropsey, Seth Nov 2002 to Jan 2005 Position Vacant since Jan 2005 2 yrs 1 mo Lieberman, Evelyn S. (Acting) Dec 1998 to May 1999 Cropsey (Nov 2002) 55 mos 

Klose, Kevin Apr 1997 to Dec 1998 Lieberman (Dec 1998) 1 yr 8 mos 

Voice of America (VOA) Directors 

VOA Directors Dates of Service Successor (w/starting date) Time Served 

Austin, Danforth Oct 2006 to Present 3 yrs 8 mos (as of 6/25/2010) 

Jackson, David Sep 2002 to Oct 2006 Austin (Oct 2006) 4 yrs 1 mo 

Reilly, Robert R. Oct 2001 to Aug 2002 Jackson (Sep 2002) 10 mos 

Ungar, Sanford J. Jun 1999 to Jun 2001 Reilly (Oct 2001) 2 yrs Lieberman, Evelyn S. Feb 1997 to May 1999 Ungar (Jun 1999) 2 yrs 3 mos 

Cowan, Geoffrey Mar 1994 to Nov 1996 Lieberman (Feb 1997) 2 yrs 8 mos 

Untermeyer, Chase Aug 1991 to Jan 1993 Cowan (Mar 1994) 1 yr 5 mos 

Carlson, Richard W. Sep 1986 to Jul 1991 Untermeyer (Aug 1991) 4 yrs 10 mos 

79 

Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB) Directors 

OCB Directors Dates of Service Successor (w/starting date) Time Served 

Roig, Pedro Apr 2003 to Present 7 yrs 2 mos (as of 6/25/2010) 

Lew, Salvador Jul 2001 to Mar 2003 Roig (Apr 2003) 1 yr 8 mos 

San Roman, Hermino 1999 to Jul 2001 Lew (Jul 2001) 2 yrs Bonachea, Rolando 1995 to Dec 1999 San Roman (1999) 4 yrs Lobo, Richard 1994 to May 1995 Bonachea (1995) 1 yr Navarro, Antonio 1990 to Jan 1993 Lobo (1994) 2 yrs 

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) Presidents 

RFE/RL Presidents Dates of Service Successor (w/starting date) Time Served 

Gedmin, Jeffrey Feb 2007 to Present 3 yrs 4 mos (as of 6/25/2010) Trimble, Jeffrey (Acting) Nov 2005 to Feb 2007 Gedmin (Feb 2007) 1 yr 3 mos 

Dine, Thomas A. May 1997 to Oct 2005 Trimble (Nov 2005) 8 yrs 5 mos 

Klose, Kevin Jun 1994 to Mar 1997 Dine (May 1997) 3 yrs 1 mo 

Marsh, William Oct 1993 to Jan 1994 Klose (Jun 1994) 3 mos 

Pell, Eugene Nov 1985 to Sep 1993 Marsh (Oct 1993) 7 yrs 10 mos 

80 

Radio Free Asia (RFA) Presidents 

RFA Presidents Dates of Service Successor (w/starting date) Time Served 

Liu, Libby Sep 2005 to Present 4 yrs 9 mos (as of 6/25/2010) Richter, Richard Mar 1996 to Jul 2005 Liu (Sep 2005) 9 yrs 4 mos 

Middle East Broadcasting (MBN) Presidents 

MBN Presidents Dates of Service Successor (w/starting date) Time Served 

Conniff, Brian Jun 2006 to Present 4 yrs (as of 6/25/2010) 

Kleinman, Herbert (Acting) Aug 2003 to Aug 2005 Conniff (Jun 2006) 2 yrs 

As of 6/25/2010 

(81) 

Appendix D.—VOA Persian News Network 

Schedule (as of 3/30/10) 

MONDAY—FRIDAY

Live Broadcasts (Time in Iran) 

6:00p—Newsbrief/History Channel 

7:00p—Newsbrief 

7:10p—Today’s Woman 

8:00p—News & Views 

9:00p—News Talk 

10:00p—Straight Talk 

11:00p—Late Edition 

Repeats 

12:00a—Newsbrief/History Channel 

1:00a—Newsbrief 

1:10a—Today’s Woman 

2:00a—News & Views 

3:00a—Newstalk 

4:00a—Straight Talk 

5:00a—Late Edition 

* 6:00a—Morning Edition (LIVE) 

7:00a—Morning Edition 

8:00a—Morning Edition 

9:00a—Newstalk 

10:00a—Morning Edition 

11:00a—Straight Talk 

12:00p—Late Edition 

1:00p—Newsbrief 

1:10p—Today’s Woman 

2:00p—Morning Edition 

3:00p—Newstalk 

4:00p—Straight Talk 

5:00p—Late Edition 

SATURDAY-SUNDAY

7:00a—C-Span 

4:00p—Straight Talk/Special Program 

5:00p—Late Edition 

Live Broadcasts 

6:00p—Newsbrief/History Channel 

7:00p—Newsbrief 

7:10p—Special Program 

8:00p—News & Views 

9:00p—Newstalk 

82 

10:00p—Special program 

11:00p—Late Edition 

Repeats 

12:00a—Newsbrief/History Channel 

1:00a—Newsbrief 

1:10a—Special Program 

2:00a—News & Views 

3:00a—Newstalk 

4:00a Special program 

5:00a—Late Edition 

* 6:00a—Morning Edition (LIVE) 

(83) 

Appendix E.—Editorials Relating to BBG 

EDITORIAL: ‘‘VOICE OF THE MULLAHS’’ 

Washington Times, April 14, 2010 

The Voice of America is becoming the Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Recent programming choices have revealed a creeping 

bias toward opponents of the pro-democracy movement and de facto 

supporters of the regime. This ill befits the VOA mission and the 

purpose of U.S. public diplomacy. 

On March 17, Rep. Trent Franks, Arizona Republican, sent a letter to President Obama signed by 69 members of Congress requesting that the White House ‘‘investigate reported mismanagement 

and bias at Voice of America’s Persian News Network (VOA-PNN).’’ 

The lawmakers expressed concern over ‘‘the apparent lack of oversight regarding the management, staffing, mission and content of 

VOA-PNN broadcasting.’’ The letter notes that the service ‘‘may 

have harmed the plight of those seeking human rights, rather than 

helping it.’’ 

Cases in point are two recent VOA broadcasts that gave preferred treatment to pro-regime messages. On March 29, VOA-PNN 

interviewed Hooshang Amir-Ahmadi, an anti-sanctions activist 

called ‘‘Iran’s pseudo U.S. lobbyist’’ by Iranian democracy groups. 

Mr. Amir-Ahmadi expressed the view that Iran’s belligerent posture and nuclear program are the natural results of being surrounded by U.S. missiles and bombs; hence, progress can come only 

through the United States softening its policies toward Tehran. 

On April 1, VOA gave airtime to Trita Parsi, head of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), which has received millions of dollars in federal funds to promote democracy in Iran. Mr. 

Parsi expressed various odd positions, such as that Israel prefers 

to have hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power in 

Tehran, that members of the Obama administration know sanctions won’t work but pursue them only as a bargaining position, 

and—most strangely—that even if Iran succeeded in establishing a 

democracy, the United States would nevertheless keep sanctions in 

place. VOA gave Mr. Parsi preferential treatment by banning callers while he was on the air even though he appeared on a call-in 

show; those who later took issue with his views were quickly cut 

off. 

Mr. Parsi was the subject of an investigation by the Senate federal financial management subcommittee, which revealed that 

most of the federal funds received by NIAC were not used for their 

intended purpose and that he was working with a regime-controlled front posing as an Iranian nongovernmental organization. 

These and other developments have generated buzz in the pro-deVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:02 Jul 15, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00089 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 H:\DOCS\56883.TXT MIKEB
84 

mocracy Iranian blogosphere that VOA has become a pro-mullah 

outlet. 

The rub is that the Iranian people may not even get to hear 

these messages because Tehran routinely jams VOA broadcasts. 

Voice of America recently drafted a strongly worded protest against 

the jamming, but the National Security Council intervened in an 

attempt to block the protest and, failing that, to water down the 

language. Republican Sens. Jon Kyl of Arizona, Tom Coburn of 

Oklahoma and Sam Brownback of Kansas sent a letter to Broadcasting Board of Governors Executive Director Jeffrey N. Trimble 

on March 9 noting that such White House intervention constitutes 

‘‘serious violations of U.S. law, policy and tradition related to the 

editorial independence of the taxpayer-funded’’ board of governors. 

These events should be hot topics when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee holds hearings on nominations for new members 

of the broadcasting board. Meanwhile, if VOA is telling Iranians 

struggling for freedom that resistance is futile, we hope Tehran 

keeps jamming it. 

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: ‘‘VOA’S PERSIAN NEWS AIMS

FOR OBJECTIVITY’’ 

Washington Times, April 19, 2010 

Your allegation that Voice of America’s Persian News Network 

(VOA PNN) ‘‘is becoming the Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran’’ 

is simply not supported by the facts (‘‘Voice of the mullahs,’’ Comment & Analysis, Wednesday). 

You cite two recent ‘‘cases in point,’’ describing broadcasts that, 

in your view, ‘‘gave preferred treatment to pro-regime messages.’’ 

There is no preferred treatment of any messages in VOA PNN programs. Allowing a wide range of voices and opinions underscores 

VOA’s commitment and adherence to a congressionally approved 

charter that requires programming to be accurate, objective and 

comprehensive. 

The two guests you selectively cited represent only a small part 

of what PNN offered its audience that particular week, and each 

has appeared on or written articles for a wide variety of media. 

Hooshang Amir-Ahmadi is a prominent professor at Rutgers University who also has appeared on CNN, Fox, BBC, ABC and PBS. 

He recently returned to the United States from a trip to Iran, 

where he met with influential contacts, including a member of the 

Guardian Council. On March 29, the same day the professor appeared on our broadcast, we also interviewed George Lopez, a senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace, who testified in December 

before a House subcommittee on the effectiveness of sanctions 

against Iran. 

Trita Parsi, the head of a leading Iranian-American group, has 

written articles for the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, the 

American Conservative and other publications. On April 1, the 

same day he appeared on our air, we also interviewed Taghi 

Rahmani, an opposition journalist. VOA did not ‘‘ban’’ callers during the Parsi segment, as you claim. Three points of view were ofVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:02 Jul 15, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00090 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 H:\DOCS\56883.TXT MIKEB
85 

fered, and the host took questions about the segment during the 

last 30 minutes of the broadcast. 

The representation of all voices is a critical component of PNN’s 

programming, which is driven by the news and events of the day. 

This approach is succeeding—PNN programming draws some of 

the biggest audiences of U.S. international broadcasting and is 

seen weekly by almost 30 percent of Iranian television viewers. 

It is important to note that each day, VOA receives compelling 

calls, e-mails and letters from inside Iran or from members of the 

Iranian diaspora. They thank PNN for providing information about 

the world and events in Iran that are not covered by their local 

news media. PNN brought the street demonstrations in Iran into 

homes throughout the country as they were happening and provided Iranian citizen-journalists and cell-phone videographers with 

an outlet for airing events they witnessed firsthand but that were 

not publicized by Iranian television. 

In order to keep its people from seeing PNN content, the Iranian 

government attempts to block our Web sites and jam our broadcasts. And so we ask, would the government of Iran waste time and 

money jamming VOA’s PNN if it didn’t find the content objectionable? 

DANFORTH W. AUSTIN, Director, 

Voice of America, Washington, DC. 

(87) 

Appendix F.—Recent State Department Office 

of the Inspector General (OIG) and 

Government Accountability Office (GAO) 

Reports on the BBG 

Number Title Link 

FY 2010 

ISP–IB–10–48 BBG Operations in Afghanistan http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/139264.pdf 

AUD/IB–10–19 Independent Auditor’s Report on the 

Broadcasting Board of Governor’s 

2009 and 2008 Financial Statements 

http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/140388.pdf 

ISP–IB–10–28 BBG’s Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc. http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/140389.pdf 

ISP–IB–10–27 Limited Scope Inspection of Radio Free 

Europe/Radio Liberty’s New Headquarters in Prague, Czech Republic 

http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/139263.pdf 

AUD/IT–10–09 Review of the Information Security Program at the Broadcasting Board of 

Governors 

http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/138085.pdf 

FY 2009 

ISP–IB–09–67 

(July 2009) 

Review of the Voice of America’s Radio 

Deewa’s Journalistic Controls 

http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/126646.pdf 

ISP–IB–09–46 

(July 2009) 

Inspection of the Voice of America 

News Bureau London, United Kingdom 

http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/128844.pdf 

ISP–IB–09–27 

(March 2009) 

Inspection of the Voice of America’s 

Persian News Network 

http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/126688.pdf 

FY 2008 

ISP–IB–08–45 

(May 08) 

Alhurra’s Programming Policies and 

Procedures 

http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/106057.pdf 

ISP–IB–08–12 

(Jan. 08) 

Inspection of the Broadcasting Board 

of Governors (Oversight Board) 

http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/104122.pdf 

ISP–IB–08–07 

(Jan. 08) 

BBG Operations in Kenya http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/128101.pdf 

ISP–IB–08–06 Inspection of Voice of America’s Central News http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/117823.pdf 

ISP–IB–08–05 Inspection of IBB’s Morocco Transmitting Station http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/128102.pdf 

88 

Number Title Link 

AUD/FM–08–07 Independent Auditor’s Report on the 

Broadcasting Board of Governors’ 

2007 and 2006 Financial Statements 

http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/124235.pdf 

AUD/FM–08–06 Management Letter Related to the 

Audit of the Broadcasting Board of 

Governors’ 2007 and 2006 Financial 

Statements 

http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/117579.pdf 

FY 2007 

ISP–IB–07–37A Inspection of IBB’s Philippines Transmitting Station http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/104117.pdf 

ISP–IB–07–35 

(June 07) 

Inspection of Office of Cuba Broadcasting http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/89908.pdf 

ISP–IB–07–32 

(May 07) 

BBG Operations in Russia http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/104101.pdf 

ISP–I–07–03 

(Oct. 06) 

Inspection of the International Broadcasting Bureau’s Office of Engineering and Technical Services http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/130709.pdf 

AUD/IB–07–26 Independent Auditor’s Report on the 

Review of Middle East Broadcasting 

Networks, Inc., Awards to Three 

Contractors 

http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/124531.pdf 

FY 2006 

ISP–IB–06–37 

(May 06) 

Inspection of IBB’s Office of Performance Review http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/121797.pdf 

ISP–IB–06–02 

(Feb. 06) 

BBG’s Operations in and Broadcasting 

to Afghanistan 

http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/104128.pdf 

AUD/FM–06–06 Management Letter Related to the 

Audit of the Broadcasting Board of 

Governors’ 2005 Principal Financial 

Statements and 2004 Balance Sheet 

http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/110715.pdf 

AUD/SI–06–24 Audit of Emergency Preparedness at 

the Washington Metropolitan Facilities of the Broadcasting Board of 

Governors 

http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/131170.pdf 

FY 2005 

ISP–IB–05–67 

(Sept. 05) 

BBG’s Operations in and Broadcasting 

to Pakistan 

http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/124640.pdf 

ISP–IB–05–63 

(Aug. 05) 

Inspection of IBB’s Botswana Transmitting Station http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/124641.pdf 

ISP–IB–05–66 

(Aug. 05) 

Inspection of BBG’s Operations in India http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/104084.pdf 

ISP–IB–05–64 

(Aug. 05) 

Inspection of BBG’s Operations in Hong 

Kong 

http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/104048.pdf 

ISP–IB–05–69 

(Aug. 05) 

IBB’s Greenville, NC Transmitting Station http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/104048.pdf 

IBO–I–05–05 

(March 05) 

Inspection of IBB’s Delano, CA Transmitting Station http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/125791.pdf 

89 

Number Title Link 

ISP–IB–05–65 

(Aug. 05) 

Review of VOA’s Digital Upgrade Program http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/117824.pdf 

IBO/IQO–A–05–02 

(Dec. 2005) 

Review of Radio Sawa Support to the 

Transition in Post-Saddam Iraq 

http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/37864.pdf 

Government Accountability Office Reports on U.S. Broadcasting 

GAO Report Number Title Link 

GAO-09-127 Broadcasting to Cuba: Actions Are 

Needed to Improve Strategy and 

Operations (January 2009) 

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/ 

d09127.pdf 

GAO-08-764 Broadcasting to Cuba: Weaknesses in 

Contracting Practices Reduced Visibility into Selected Award Decisions (July 2008) 

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/ 

d08764.pdf 

GAO-06-762 U.S. International Broadcasting: Management of Middle East Broadcasting Services Could Be Improved (Aug. 2006) http://www.gao.gov/new.items/ 

d06762.pdf 

GAO-06-535 U.S. Public Diplomacy: State Department Efforts to Engage Muslim 

Audiences Lack Certain Communication Elements and Face Significant Challenges (May 2006) 

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/ 

d06535.pdf 

GAO-05-323 U.S. Public Diplomacy: Interagency 

Coordination Efforts Hampered by 

the Lack of a National Communication Strategy (April 2005) 

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/ 

d05323.pdf 

GAO-04-1061T U.S Public Diplomacy: State Department and Broadcasting Board of 

Governors Expand Post-9/11 Efforts 

But Challenges Remain (Aug. 

2004) 

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/ 

d041061t.pdf 

GAO-04-711T U.S International Broadcasting: Challenges Facing the Broadcasting 

Board of Governors (April 29, 

2004) 

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/ 

d04711t.pdf 

GAO-04-627T U.S International Broadcasting: Challenges Facing the Broadcasting 

Board of Governors (April 1, 2004) 

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/ 

d04627t.pdf 

GAO-04-374 U.S. International Broadcasting: Enhanced Measure of Local Media 

Conditions Would Facilitate Decisions to Terminate Language Services (Feb. 2004) 

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/ 

d04374.pdf 

(91) 

Appendix G.—Chinese Media Outlets 

Working in the United States 

21st Century Business Herald Beijing Daily 

Beijing Review Beijing Youth Daily 

Caijing Magazine Caixin Media 

CCTV China Business News 

China Central Television China Central TV America 

CHINA DAILY China Economic Daily 

China News Service China Radio International (CRI) 

China Television Company (CTV) CHINA YOUTH DAILY 

ECONOMIC DAILY Feature Story News (FSN) 

Fortune Times Foshan Daily 

Foshan TV Geo TV 

Global Times GUANGMING DAILY 

Jiefang Daily LEGAL DAILY 

Liberation Daily Oriental Morning Post 

PEOPLE S DAILY People’s Daily 

Radio Foshan Science & Technology Daily 

Shanghai Evening Post Shanghai Morning Post 

Shanghai Oriental Morning Post SHANGHAI WENHUI DAILY 

SING TAO CHINESE RADIO/DAILY Southern Metropolis Daily 

Southern Weekly The China Press 

The Economic Observer Tsinghua University School of Journalism 

TTV - Taiwan Television TVBS 

Wen Hui Daily Xin Min Evening News 

Xinhua News Agency 

(93) 

Appendix H.—Alhurra Schedule 

All times: Cairo, Egypt; 

Program Premieres are Bold; Live Programs are Italicized 

SUNDAY 

12:00 am The World Now News Update 11:00 am The World Now Newscast 

12:10 am Very Close (second half) 11:30 am Inside Washington 

1:00 am The World Now Newscast 12:00 pm The World Now News Update 

1:30 am Documentary 12:10 pm Documentary 

2:00 am The World Now News Update 1:00 pm The World Now News Update 

2:10 am Documentary 1:10 pm Eye on Democracy 

3:00 am The World Now News Update 2:00 pm The World Now Newscast 

3:10 am Eye on Democracy 2:30 pm Inside Washington 

4:00 am Women’s Views 3:00 pm Women’s Views 

5:00 am The World Now News Update 4:00 pm Seven Days 

5:10 am Very Close (first half) 5:00 pm The World Now News Update 

6:00 am The World Now News Update 5:10 pm Documentary 

6:10 am Very Close (second half) 6:00 pm The World Today Newscast 

7:00 am All Directions 7:00 pm Al Youm 

8:00 am The World Now Newscast 10:00 pm The Global Newscast 

8:30 am Inside Washington 11:00 pm Free Hour 

9:00 am The World Now News Update 

9:10 am Very Close (first half) 

10:00 am The World Now News Update 

10:10 am Very Close (second half) 

94 

Appendix H.—Alhurra Schedule—continued 

All times: Cairo, Egypt; 

Program Premieres are Bold; Live Programs are Italicized 

MONDAY 

12:00 am The World Now News Update 11:30 am Cinemagazine 

12:10 am Documentary 12:00 pm The World Now News Update 

1:00 am The World Now Newscast 12:10 pm Documentary 

1:30 am Cinemagazine 1:00 pm The World Now News Update 

2:00 am The World Now News Update 1:10 pm Doors 

2:10 am Documentary 2:00 pm The World Now Newscast 

3:00 am Al Youm 2:30 pm High Speed 

6:00 am Free Hour 3:00 pm Free Hour 

7:00 am The World Now News Update 4:00 pm In Iraqi 

7:10 am Documentary 5:00 pm The World Now News Update 

8:00 am The World Now Newscast 5:10 pm Documentary 

8:30 am Cinemagazine 6:00 pm The World Today Newscast 

9:00 am Free Hour 7:00 pm Al Youm 

10:00 am The World Now News Update 10:00 pm The Global Newscast 

10:10 am Documentary 11:00 pm Free Hour 

11:00 am The World Now Newscast 

TUESDAY 

12:00 am The World Now News Update 11:00 am The World Now Newscast 

12:10 am Sports Weekly 11:30 am Inside Washington 

12:30 am High Speed 12:00 pm The World Now News Update 

1:00 am The World Now Newscast 12:10 pm Very Close (first half) 

1:30 am Inside Washington 1:00 pm The World Now News Update 

2:00 am The World Now News Update 1:10 pm Very Close (second half) 

2:10 am Documentary 2:00 pm The World Now Newscast 

3:00 am Al Youm 2:30 pm i-TECH 

6:00 am Free Hour 3:00 pm Free Hour 

7:00 am The World Now News Update 4:00 pm In Iraqi 

7:10 am Doors 5:00 pm The World Now News Update 

8:00 am The World Now Newscast 5:10 pm Documentary 

8:30 am i-TECH 6:00 pm The World Today Newscast 

9:00 am Free Hour 7:00 pm Al Youm 

10:00 am The World Now News Update 10:00 pm The Global Newscast 

10:10 am Gulf Talks 11:00 pm Free Hour 

95 

WEDNESDAY 

12:00 am The World Now News Update 11:30 am Sports Weekly 

12:10 am Alhurra Presents 12:00 pm The World Now News Update 

1:00 am The World Now Newscast 12:10 pm Documentary 

1:30 am i-TECH 1:00 pm The World Now News Update 

2:00 am The World Now News Update 1:10 pm Gulf Talks 

2:10 am Documentary 2:00 pm The World Now Newscast 

3:00 am Al Youm 2:30 pm High Speed 

6:00 am Free Hour 3:00 pm Free Hour 

7:00 am The World Now News Update 4:00 pm In Iraqi 

7:10 am Alhurra Presents 5:00 pm The World Now News Update 

8:00 am The World Now Newscast 5:10 pm Documentary 

8:30 am Sports Weekly 6:00 pm The World Today Newscast 

9:00 am Free Hour 7:00 pm Al Youm 

10:00 am The World Now News Update 10:00 pm The Global Newscast 

10:10 am Alhurra Presents 11:00 pm Free Hour 

11:00 am The World Now Newscast 

THURSDAY 

12:00 am The World Now News Update 11:00 am The World Now Newscast 

12:10 am Special Report 11:30 am High Speed 

1:00 am The World Now Newscast 12:00 pm The World Now News Update 

1:30 am Sports Weekly 12:10 pm Documentary 

2:00 am The World Now News Update 1:00 pm The World Now News Update 

2:10 am Documentary 1:10 pm Special Report 

3:00 am Al Youm 2:00 pm The World Now Newscast 

6:00 am Free Hour 2:30 pm Sports Weekly 

7:00 am The World Now News Update 3:00 pm Free Hour 

7:10 am Special Report 4:00 pm In Iraqi 

8:00 am The World Now Newscast 5:00 pm The World Now News Update 

8:30 am High Speed 5:10 pm Documentary 

9:00 am Free Hour 6:00 pm The World Today Newscast 

10:00 am The World Now News Update 7:00 pm Al Youm 

10:10 am Final Edition 10:00 pm The Global Newscast 

10:30 am Places 11:00 pm Free Hour 

96 

Appendix H.—Alhurra Schedule—continued 

All times: Cairo, Egypt; 

Program Premieres are Bold; Live Programs are Italicized 

FRIDAY 

12:00 am The World Now News Update 1:00 pm The World Now News Update 

12:10 am i-TECH 1:10 pm Sports Studio 

12:30 am Documentary 2:00 pm The World Now Newscast 

1:00 am The World Now Newscast 2:30 pm i-TECH 

1:30 am High Speed 3:00 pm Free Hour 

2:00 am The World Now News Update 4:00 pm In Iraqi 

2:10 am Documentary 5:00 pm The World Now News Update 

3:00 am Al Youm 5:10 pm Documentary 

6:00 am Free Hour 6:00 pm The World Today Newscast 

7:00 am The World Now News Update 7:00 pm The World Now Update 

7:10 am Sports Studio 7:10 pm Cinemagazine 

8:00 am The World Now Newscast 7:30 pm From Wall Street 

8:30 am Documentary 8:00 pm The World Now News Update 

9:00 am Free Hour 8:10 pm Equality 

10:00 am The World Now News Update 9:00 pm All Directions 

10:10 am Equality 10:00 pm The Global Newscast 

11:00 am The World Now Newscast 11:00 am The World Now News Update 

11:30 am Documentary 11:10 pm Gulf Talks 

12:00 pm The World Now News Update 

12:10 pm Documentary 

SATURDAY 

12:00 am The World Now News Update 11:30 am From Wall Street 

12:10 am Documentary 12:00 pm The World Now News Update 

1:00 am The World Now Newscast 12:10 pm Documentary 

1:30 am From Wall Street 1:00 pm The World Now News Update 

2:00 am The World Now News Update 1:10 pm Gulf Talks 

2:10 am Documentary 2:00 pm The World Now Newscast 

3:00 am The World Now News Update 2:30 pm i-TECH 

3:10 am Equality 3:00 pm All Directions 

4:00 am All Directions 4:00 pm Talk of Two Rivers 

5:00 am The World Now News Update 5:00 pm The World Now News Update 

5:10 am Gulf Talks 5:10 pm Documentary 

6:00 am The World Now News Update 6:00 pm The World Today Newscast 

6:10 am Documentary 7:00 pm The World Now News Update 

7:00 am The World Now News Update 7:10 pm Inside Washington 

7:10 am Equality 7:30 pm 30 Minutes 

8:00 am The World Now Newscast 8:00 pm The World Now News Update 

8:30 am Cinemagazine 8:10 pm Eye on Democracy 

9:00 am The World Now News Update 9:00 pm Women’s Views 

9:10 am Equality 10:00 pm The Global Newscast 

10:00 am The World Now News Update 11:00 pm The World Now News Update 

10:10 am Documentary 11:10 pm Very Close (first half) 

11:00 am The World Now Newscast 

(97) 

Appendix I.—BBG/IBB Satellite Coverage 

(Affiliate/Direct to Home) 

Æ 


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