Testimony 

Before the Subcommittee on International 

Operations and Terrorism, Committee on 

Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate 

United States General Accounting Office 

GAO

For Release on Delivery 

Expected at 2:30 p.m. EDT 

Thursday, April 29, 2004 U.S. INTERNATIONAL 

BROADCASTING 

Challenges Facing the 

Broadcasting Board of 

Governors 

Statement of Jess T. Ford, Director 

International Affairs and Trade 

GAO-04-711T 
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-711T.

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact Jess T. Ford at 

(202) 512-4128 or fordj@gao.gov. 

Highlights of GAO-04-711T, a testimony

before the Subcommittee on International 

Operations and Terrorism, Committee on 

Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate 

Thursday, April 29, 2004

U.S. INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING

Challenges Facing the Broadcasting 

Board of Governors 

The Broadcasting Board of Governors has responded to a disparate 

organizational structure and marketing challenges by developing a new 

strategic approach to broadcasting which, among other things, emphasizes 

reaching large audiences through modern broadcasting techniques. 

Organizationally, the existence of five separate broadcast entities has led to 

overlapping language services, duplication of program content, redundant 

newsgathering and support services, and difficulties coordinating broadcast 

efforts. Marketing challenges include outmoded program formats, poor 

signal delivery, and low audience awareness in many markets. Alhurra 

television broadcasts to the Middle East and Radio Farda broadcasts to Iran 

illustrate the Board’s efforts to better manage program content and meet the 

needs of its target audiences. Although we have not validated available 

research data, the Board claims that the application of its new approach has 

led to dramatic increases in listening rates in key Middle East markets. 

To streamline its operations, the Board has used its annual language service 

review process to address such issues as how resources should be allocated 

among language services on the basis of their priority and impact, what 

degree of overlap should exist among services, and whether services should 

be eliminated because they have fulfilled their broadcast mission. Since 

1999, the Board has identified more than $50 million in actual or potential 

savings through this process. 

In response to our recommendations on the Board’s strategic planning and 

performance management efforts, the Board revised its strategic plan to 

make reaching large audiences in strategic markets the centerpiece of its 

performance reporting system. The Board also added broadcaster 

credibility and audience awareness to its array of performance measures and 

plans to add a measure of whether VOA is meeting its mandated mission. 

Alhurra’s Broadcast Center in Springfield, Virginia 

The terrorist attacks of September 

11, 2001, were a dramatic reminder 

of the importance of cultivating a 

better understanding of the United 

States and its policies with 

overseas audiences. U.S. public 

diplomacy activities include the 

efforts of the Broadcasting Board 

of Governors, which oversees all 

nonmilitary U.S. international 

broadcasting by the Voice of 

America (VOA) and several other 

broadcast entities. Such 

broadcasting helps promote a 

better understanding of the United 

States and serves U.S. interests by 

providing overseas audiences with 

accurate and objective news about 

the United States and the world. 

GAO has issued three reports over 

the past 4 years examining the 

organizational, marketing, 

resource, and performance 

reporting challenges faced by the 

Board. Our recommendations to 

the Board have included the need 

to address the long-standing issue 

of overlapping language services 

(i.e., where two services broadcast 

in the same language to the same 

audience) and to strengthen the 

Board’s strategic planning and 

performance by placing a greater 

emphasis on results. The Board 

has taken significant steps to 

respond to these and other 

recommendations.
Page 1 GAO-04-711T 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: 

I am pleased to be here today to provide an overview of the three reports 

we have issued over the past 4 years on the operations of the Broadcasting 

Board of Governors.1,2,3

 These reports have examined a number of 

organizational, marketing, resource, and performance management 

challenges facing U.S. international broadcasting. Our two most recent 

reports have addressed the Board’s principal response to these 

challenges—a new 5-year strategic approach to international broadcasting 

known as “Marrying the Mission to the Market,” which emphasizes the 

need to reach large audiences by applying modern broadcast techniques 

and strategically allocating resources to focus on high-priority broadcast 

markets. Early implementation of this strategy has focused on markets 

relevant to the war on terrorism, in particular the Middle East and central 

Asia. 

Drawing from our published reports as well as recent testimony on U.S. 

public diplomacy,4

 I will talk today about (1) organizational and marketing 

obstacles and the Board’s efforts to overcome them, (2) what the Board 

has done to manage its limited resources, and (3) the status of Board 

efforts to develop meaningful performance goals and measures. I will also 

discuss our recommendations to the Board and the status of its response 

to them. As part of our work to prepare for this testimony, we met with 

Board staff to obtain updated program data and current information on the 

steps the Board has taken to respond to our recommendations. The 

reports used for this testimony were based on work conducted in 

accordance with government auditing standards. 

 1

U.S. General Accounting Office, U.S. International Broadcasting: Strategic Planning and 

Performance Management System Could Be Improved, GAO/NSIAD-00-222 (Washington, 

D.C.: Sept. 27, 2000). 

2

U.S. General Accounting Office, U.S. International Broadcasting: New Strategic 

Approach Focuses on Reaching Large Audiences but Lacks Measurable Program 

Objectives, GAO-03-772 (Washington, D.C.: July 15, 2003). 

3

U.S. General Accounting Office, U.S. International Broadcasting: Enhanced Measure of 

Local Media Conditions Would Facilitate Decisions to Terminate Language Services, 

GAO-04-374 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 26, 2004). 

4

U.S. General Accounting Office, U.S. Public Diplomacy: State Department and the 

Broadcasting Board of Governors Expand Efforts in the Middle East but Face 

Significant Challenges, GAO-04-435T (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 10, 2004). 
Page 2 GAO-04-711T 

The Broadcasting Board of Governors faces a number of challenges, and 

key among them is how to achieve large audiences in priority markets 

while dealing with (1) a disparate organizational structure consisting of 

five broadcast entities and a mix of federal and grantee organizations 

managed by a part-time Board and (2) a collection of outdated and 

noncompetitive language services that have failed to respond to current 

market conditions. The disparate structure of U.S. international 

broadcasting has led to overlapping language services, duplication of 

program content, redundant newsgathering and support services, and 

difficulties in coordinating broadcast efforts. Marketing challenges include 

the use of outmoded program formats and styles, the general lack of target 

audiences within broadcast markets, poor signal delivery in many areas, 

and low audience awareness in several major markets. The Board’s new 

strategic approach addresses these issues by treating broadcast entities as 

content providers within a “single system” that the Board oversees to 

ensure that broadcast content meets the discrete needs of individual 

markets using modern broadcasting techniques. Recent Board initiatives 

such as Radio Sawa broadcasts to the Middle East and Radio Farda 

broadcasts to Iran illustrate the Board’s willingness both to serve as the 

content manager for U.S. international broadcasting and to adopt a 

market-based approach designed to attract large listening audiences in 

high-priority markets in support of U.S. strategic objectives in the war on 

terrorism. Although we have not validated available research data, the 

Board claims that the application of its new strategic approach has led to 

dramatic increases in audience listening rates in markets of key strategic 

interest to the United States. 

Triggered by a desire to better manage its limited resources, the Board has 

used its annual language service review process to identify and reallocate 

cost savings to fund higher-priority needs, such as expanded initiatives in 

the Middle East and central Asia. The process is used to address such 

complex resource issues as how funds should be allocated among services 

based on their priority and impact, how many broadcast services should 

be carried, what degree of overlap and content duplication should exist 

among services, and whether services should be eliminated because they 

have fulfilled their broadcast mission. Since 1999, the Board has identified 

more than $50 million in actual or potential budget savings through the 

language service review process. From 1999 through 2002, the language 

service review process resulted in the reallocation of about $19.7 million 

from lower-priority or lower-impact language services to higher-priority 

Summary 
Page 3 GAO-04-711T 

broadcast needs, including Radio Farda and Radio Sawa. In response to 

our recommendation, the Board updated its review process to include a 

specific analysis of overlapping language services.5

 In its 2003 review, the 

Board identified $12.4 million in fiscal year 2004 and 2005 transmission 

cost and language service overlap reductions that could be reallocated to 

higher-priority needs, such as expanding Urdu language broadcasts to 

Pakistan and Persian language television to Iran. Finally, the Board has 

used its language service review process as a vehicle for identifying which 

language services should be eliminated. For example, based on its review 

process, the Board’s fiscal year 2004 budget request to Congress 

recommended the elimination of 17 Central and Eastern European 

language services managed by Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free 

Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), saving a projected $20.9 million for fiscal 

years 2004 and 2005. While the Board is to be commended for making a 

difficult decision in this case, our February 2004 report did note that the 

language service review process lacks an adequate measure of whether 

domestic media provide accurate, balanced, and comprehensive news and 

information to national audiences—a condition that Congress expects to 

be met before RFE/RL language services are terminated.6

In response to our recommendations on the Board’s strategic planning and 

performance management efforts, the Board revised its strategic plan to 

make the goal of reaching large audiences in strategic markets the 

centerpiece of its performance reporting system. Also in response to our 

recommendations, the Board added broadcaster credibility and audience 

awareness to its array of performance measures and plans to add a 

measure of whether VOA is meeting its mission. These steps will help the 

Board answer questions about the effectiveness of initiatives such as 

Radio Sawa and Alhurra (the two entities comprising the Middle East 

Television Network) in reaching mass audiences and elites in the Middle 

East, whether foreign publics perceive U.S. broadcast services as being 

 5

Overlap exists when a VOA and a surrogate service, such as RFE/RL, broadcast in the 

same language to the same target audience. Some degree of overlap is appropriate given 

the varying missions of U.S. broadcast entities. However, in its new strategic plan, the 

Board identified a 40 percent overlap in its language services as excessive. 

6

With passage of the Fiscal Year 2004 Consolidated Appropriations Act, House and Senate 

conferees adopted the Board’s proposal to terminate service to those Central and Eastern 

European nations that have been invited to become new member states of the European 

Union or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and have received a Freedom 

House (a nonprofit group reporting on economic, political, and press freedom issues 

around the world) rating equal to that of the United States. Conferees expressed the 

expectation that broadcast services would continue in Romanian and Croatian. 
Page 4 GAO-04-711T 

independent of American foreign policy, and whether VOA is effectively 

promoting the image of the United States and educating foreign audiences 

about U.S. practices and policies. 

The Broadcasting Board of Governors oversees the efforts of all 

nonmilitary international broadcasting, which reaches an estimated 

audience of more than 100 million people each week in more than 125 

markets worldwide. The Board manages the operations of the 

International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB), VOA, the Middle East Television 

Network (Alhurra and Radio Sawa), RFE/RL, and Radio Free Asia (RFA). 

In addition to serving as a reliable source of news and information, VOA is 

responsible for presenting U.S. policies through a variety of means, 

including officially labeled government editorials. Radio/TV Marti, 

RFE/RL, and RFA were created by Congress to function as “surrogate” 

broadcasters, designed to temporarily replace the local media of countries 

where a free and open press does not exist. Created by the Bush 

administration and the Board, the Middle East Television Network draws 

its mission from the core purpose of U.S. international broadcasting, 

which is to promote and sustain freedom by broadcasting accurate and 

objective news and information about the United States and the world to 

audiences overseas.7

In addition to the stand-alone entities that make up U.S. international 

broadcasting, Congress and the Board have created other broadcast 

organizations to meet specific program objectives. Congress created Radio 

Free Iraq, Radio Free Iran, and Radio Free Afghanistan and incorporated 

these services into RFE/RL’s operations. Under its new strategic approach 

to broadcasting, the Board and the Bush administration created Radio 

Sawa, the Afghanistan Radio Network (ARN), Radio Farda, and Alhurra to 

replace poorly performing services, more effectively combine existing 

services, and create new broadcast entities where needed. Figure 1 

illustrates the Board’s current organizational structure. 

 7

The U.S. International Broadcasting Act of 1994 states that U.S. international broadcasting 

efforts should, among other things, be consistent with the broad foreign policy objectives 

of the United States; provide a balanced and comprehensive projection of U.S. thought and 

institutions; and provide accurate and objective news and information about developments 

in significant regions of the world. 

Background 
Page 5 GAO-04-711T 

Figure 1: Organizational Structure of U.S. International Broadcasting 

VOA, RFE/RL, and RFA are organized around a collection of language 

services that produces program content. In some countries, more than one 

entity broadcasts in the same language. These overlapping services are 

designed to meet the distinct missions of each broadcast entity. Currently, 

42 of the Board’s 74 language services (or 57 percent) target the same 

audiences in the same languages. While some degree of overlap is to be 

expected given the varying missions of the broadcast entities, the Board 

has concluded that this level of overlap requires ongoing analysis and 

scrutiny. 

The Board’s budget for fiscal year 2003 was approximately $552 million, 

with nearly half of its resources used to cover transmission, technical 

support, Board and IBB management staff salaries, and other support 

costs. Among the broadcast entities, funds are roughly equally divided 

among VOA and the four other U.S. broadcasting entities. Figure 2 

provides a breakout of the Board’s fiscal year 2003 budget. 
Page 6 GAO-04-711T 

Figure 2: Broadcasting Board of Governors Funding, Fiscal Year 2003 

Our reviews of U.S. international broadcasting reveal that the Board faces 

the challenges of operating a mix of broadcast entities with varying 

missions and structures in an environment that provides significant 

marketing obstacles. As we reported in July 2003, the Board has adopted a 

new approach to broadcasting that is designed to overcome several of 

these challenges. The Board’s key organizational challenge is the disparate 

mix of broadcast entities it is tasked with managing.8

 To address this 

problem, the Board has adopted a “single system” approach to 

broadcasting whereby broadcast entities are viewed as content providers 

and the Board assumes a central role in tailoring this content to meet the 

demands of individual markets. The Board also faces marketing challenges 

that include the lack of a unique reason for listeners to tune in, the general 

lack of target audiences within broadcast markets, and poor-to-fair signal 

quality for many of the broadcast services. Recent initiatives such as Radio 

Sawa and Alhurra have addressed these deficiencies, and the Board has 

 8

Our July 2003 report discusses additional organizational issues, including the potential 

need for a Chief Executive Officer or Chief Operating Officer to handle day-to-day 

operations for the Board and whether VOA and Radio/TV Marti should be reconstituted as 

grantees to put them on the same footing as other U.S. broadcast entities. 

Disparate Structure 

and an Outmoded 

Broadcast Approach 

Hamper Efforts to 

Reach Large 

Audiences in Strategic 

Markets 
Page 7 GAO-04-711T 

required that all broadcast services, to the extent feasible, address these 

issues as well. 

The Board’s major organizational challenge is the need to further 

consolidate and streamline its operations to better leverage existing 

resources and generate greater program impact in priority markets. 

According to the Board’s strategic plan, “the diversity of the Broadcasting 

Board of Governors—diverse organizations with different missions, 

different frameworks, and different constituencies—makes it a challenge 

to bring all the separate parts together in a more effective whole.” As 

noted in our 2003 report, senior program managers and outside experts 

with whom we spoke supported considering the option of consolidating 

U.S. international broadcasting efforts into a single entity. 

The Board intends to create a unified broadcasting system by treating the 

component parts of U.S. international broadcasting as a single system. 

Under this approach, VOA and other U.S. broadcast entities are viewed as 

content providers, and the Board’s role is to bring this content together to 

form new services or entities as needed. The single-system approach to 

managing the Board’s diversity requires that the Board actively manage 

resources across broadcast entities to achieve common broadcast goals. A 

good example of this strategy in action is Radio Farda, which combined 

VOA and RFE/RL broadcast content to produce a new broadcast product 

for the Iranian market. In the case of Radio Sawa, the Board replaced 

VOA’s poorly performing Arabic service with a new broadcast entity. The 

Board’s experience with implementing Radio Sawa suggests that it can be 

difficult to make disparate broadcast entities work toward a common 

purpose. For example, Board members and senior planners told us they 

encountered some difficulties attempting to work with officials to launch 

Radio Sawa within VOA’s structure and were later forced to constitute 

Radio Sawa as a separate grantee organization. While this move was 

needed to achieve the Board’s strategic objectives, it contributed to the 

further fragmentation of U.S. international broadcasting. 

The Board’s strategic plan comments openly on the marketing challenges 

facing U.S. international broadcasters, specifically that many language 

services lack a unique reason for listeners or viewers to tune in; few 

language services have identified their target audiences—a key first step in 

developing a broadcast strategy; many language services have outmoded 

formats and programs with an antiquated, even Cold War, sound and style; 

and three-quarters of transmitted hours have poor or fair signal quality. 

Disparate Structure of 

Broadcast Operations 

Remains an Ongoing 

Challenge 

New Initiatives Address 

Marketing Challenges 
Page 8 GAO-04-711T 

Consistent with its “Marrying the Mission to the Market” philosophy, the 

Board has sought to address these deficiencies in key markets with new 

initiatives in Afghanistan, Iran, and the Middle East that support the war 

on terrorism. The first project under the new approach, Radio Sawa 

(recently added to the new Middle East Television Network), was 

launched in March 2002 using many of the modern, market-tested 

broadcasting techniques and practices prescribed in its strategic plan, 

including identifying a target audience, researching the best way to attract 

the target audience, and delivering programming to the Middle East in a 

contemporary and appealing format. The Board’s other recent initiatives 

also have adhered to this new approach by being tailored to the specific 

circumstances of each target market. These initiatives include the 

Afghanistan Radio Network, Radio Farda service to Iran, and the Alhurra 

satellite service to the Middle East. Table 1 describes the Board’s recent 

projects that support the war on terrorism. 
Page 9 GAO-04-711T 

Table 1: The Board’s Recent Initiatives that Support the War on Terrorism 

Initiative Launch date Project description 

Radio Sawa 

(recently added to the Middle East 

Television Network) 

March 2002 A modern Arabic-language network that broadcasts music, news, and 

information to a target audience of 15- to 29- year olds in the Middle East via a 

combination of FM, medium wave, short wave, digital audio satellite, and 

Internet transmission resources. Separate streams are targeted to Iraq, 

Jordan and the West Bank, the Persian Gulf, Egypt, and Morocco. All five 

streams have a differentiated music program; however, the news is similar on 

the four non-Iraq streams. Board officials say that Radio Sawa broadcasts 

between 10 to 15 minutes of news each hour. 

Afghanistan Radio Network August 2002 Afghanistan Radio Network is a coordinated stream of VOA Dari and Pashto 

and RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan radio programming. The network 

targets the broad Afghani population and currently broadcasts 24 hours, 7 

days a week on FM and the Internet. It broadcasts 12 hours in Dari and 12 

hours in Pashto daily. It features hourly regional and global news and 

information coverage as well as reports on issues such as health, education, 

politics, human rights, women’s rights, and economic reconstruction. 

Radio Farda December 2002 Radio Farda combines the efforts of VOA and RFE/RL into a single service 

managed by RFE/RL. Radio Farda targets its broadcasts to the under-30 

youth in Iran. It broadcasts a combination of popular Persian and Western 

music and a total of 8 hours of news and information content daily, focusing 

on regional coverage and developments relating to Iran. News updates are 

given at least twice an hour, with longer news programming in the morning 

and evening. It broadcasts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week via medium wave, 

digital audio satellite, and the Internet, as well as 21 hours a day via short 

wave. 

Alhurra 

(part of the Middle East Television 

Network) 

February 2004 With a focus on attracting a broad audience in the Middle East, the Alhurra 

satellite television channel provides news, current affairs, and entertainment 

programming on a 24 hours, 7 days a week basis. Programming focuses on 

news and information, including hourly news updates, daily hour-long 

newscasts, and current affairs talk shows. The channel also broadcasts 

information or educational shows on subjects including health and fitness, 

entertainment, sports, and science and technology. 

Source: Broadcasting Board of Governors. 

Although we have not validated available research data, the Board claims 

that implementation of these marketing improvements has led to dramatic 

increases in audience listening rates. For example, based on surveys 

conducted by ACNielsen, the Board maintains that Radio Sawa is now the 
Page 10 GAO-04-711T 

number one international broadcaster in six countries in the Middle East,9

reaching an average weekly audience of about 38 percent of the general 

population and about 49 percent of its 15- to 29-year-old target audience 

across all six countries. These levels far exceed the 1 to 2 percent 

audience reach of the VOA Arabic service, which Radio Sawa replaced. In 

addition, the Board’s main research contractor—Intermedia—has 

indicated that as of March 2004, Radio Farda is the leading international 

broadcaster in Iran—achieving an average weekly listenership of 15 

percent, which is 10 percent more than the combined weekly audiences 

for VOA and RFE/RL’s prior services to Iran. Board officials have told us 

that preliminary audience reach data for the Board’s satellite channel 

Alhurra will be available by June of this year. While the audience numbers 

on Radios Sawa and Farda appear to be very positive, as we reported in 

July 2003, U.S. broadcasters suffer from a credibility problem. To address 

this issue, we recommended that the Board adopt measures of broadcaster 

credibility, which the Board has recently implemented. 

In addition to these new initiatives, the Board has tasked all language 

services with adopting the tenets of its new approach, such as identifying a 

target audience and improving signal quality, to the maximum extent 

possible within existing budget constraints. They hope that these 

improvements will lead to significant audience boosts for a number of 

higher- and lower-priority services that suffer from very low listening 

rates. For example, data from the Board’s 2003 language review show that 

more than one-quarter of all language services had listening rates of fewer 

than 2 percent at that time. 

 9

Countries surveyed include Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and 

Morocco. Research for Egypt, Qatar, UAE, and Kuwait was conducted in July and August 

2003. Research for Jordan and Morocco was conducted in February 2004. The six countries 

covered by the survey represent only a portion of Radio Sawa’s target broadcast area—21 

Muslim-majority countries in North Africa, the Near East, and the Persian Gulf. Notably 

absent from the Board’s performance statistics are data on major target countries such as 

Sudan (about 21 million adults), Algeria (abut 21 million adults), and Saudi Arabia (about 

14 million adults). 
Page 11 GAO-04-711T 

The Board manages its limited resources through its annual language 

service review process, which is used to address such issues as how 

resources should be allocated among services based on their priority and 

impact, how many broadcast services should be carried, what degree of 

overlap and content duplication10 should exist among services, and 

whether services should be eliminated because they have fulfilled their 

broadcast mission. This process responds to the congressional mandate 

that the Board periodically review the need to add and delete language 

services. The Board has interpreted this mandate to include the expansion 

and reduction of language services. Since 1999, the Board has identified 

more than $50 million in actual or potential savings through the language 

service review process by moving resources from lower- to higher-priority 

services, by eliminating language services, and by reducing language 

service overlap and transmission costs. 

As noted in our July 2003 report, the Board’s strategic plan concludes that 

if U.S. international broadcasting is to become a vital component of U.S. 

foreign policy, it must focus on a clear set of broadcast priorities. The plan 

notes that trying to do too much at the same time fractures this focus, 

extends the span of control beyond management capabilities, and siphons 

off precious resources. As discussed in our report, the Board determined 

that current efforts to support its broadcast languages are “unsustainable” 

with current resources, given its desire to increase impact in high-priority 

markets. Our survey of senior program managers revealed that a majority 

supported significantly reducing the total number of language services and 

the overlap in services between VOA and the surrogate broadcasters. We 

found that 18 of 24 respondents said that too many language services are 

offered. When asked how many countries should have more than one U.S. 

international broadcaster providing service in the same language, 23 of 28 

respondents said this should occur in only a few countries or no countries 

at all. 

The Board’s annual language service review process serves as the Board’s 

principal tool for managing these complex resource questions. This 

process has evolved into an intensive program and budget review that 

 10Content duplication occurs when VOA and another U.S. broadcast entity provide the 

same type of information to the same audience. Board analysis shows that VOA carries 

more information about America than the surrogates and surrogates carry more local news 

than VOA. However, there are areas of overlap in content because each broadcast entity 

carries news about America, as well as international, regional, and local events. 

Language Service 

Review Used to 

Reallocate 

Millions to HigherPriority Broadcast 

Needs 

Review Process Used to 

Address Complex 

Resource Issues 
Page 12 GAO-04-711T 

culminates with ranked priority and impact listings for each of the Board’s 

74 language services. These ranked lists become the basis for proposed 

language service reductions or eliminations and provide the Board with an 

analytical basis for making such determinations using measures of U.S. 

strategic interests, audience size, press freedom, and a host of other 

factors. Since the first language service review process began in 1999 and 

up through 2002, the Board has reduced the scope of operations of over 25 

language services based on their priority and impact rankings and 

reallocated about $19.7 million to help fund higher-priority broadcast 

needs such as Radio Sawa and Radio Farda. 

As discussed in our February 2004 report, a clear example of the language 

service review process in action was the Board’s recent proposal to 

eliminate 17 Central and Eastern European language services which 

served to reduce the overall number of language services and eliminate 

several overlapping services where the Board believed each broadcast 

entity’s mission had been completed. This decision resulted in 

nonrecurring budget savings of about $8.8 million for fiscal year 2004 and 

recurring annual savings of about $12.1 million. Our only criticism of this 

decision was that the Board’s language service review process did not 

include a measure of press freedom that gauges whether the press acts 

responsibly and professionally.11 This is a significant omission in the 

Board’s current measure, given the congressional concern that RFE/RL’s 

broadcast operations not be terminated until a country’s domestic media 

meet this condition.12 Board officials acknowledged that their existing 

press freedom measure could be updated to include information on media 

responsibility and professional quality, and work is under way to develop a 

more comprehensive measure for the Board’s 2004 language service 

review. 

 11The Board’s current press freedom measure index relies heavily on Freedom House’s 

press freedom index, which focuses on free speech issues, the plurality of news sources, 

whether media are economically independent from the government, and whether 

supporting institutions and laws function in the professional interest of the press. The 

Freedom House index is used and respected by media groups around the world. However, 

it does not assess whether domestic media provide accurate, balanced, and comprehensive 

news and information. 

12See Title III of P.L. 103-236, as amended by P.L. 106-113, Appendix G, Section 503. 
Page 13 GAO-04-711T 

In our September 2000 report, we cited the Board’s concerns about 

overlapping language services and its plans to address this issue in 

subsequent iterations of the language service review process. In our July 

2003 report we again raised the issue of language service overlap and 

content duplication between VOA and the surrogates. We also noted that 

while the Board’s strategic plan identified overlap as a challenge, it failed 

to answer questions about when it is appropriate to broadcast VOA and 

surrogate programming in the same language. 

The Board has responded to our observations and recommendations by 

incorporating a review of overlapping services in its language service 

review process for 2003. The Board developed several approaches to 

dealing with overlap. For example, services can be “merged” by having one 

service subsume another (as was the case with Radio Farda). A second 

approach is to run alternating services, as is the case with the Afghanistan 

Radio Network, which runs VOA and RFE/RL programming on a single 

broadcast stream. Another approach is to simply terminate one or both 

overlapping services. All of the Board’s overlapping services were 

assessed with these different approaches in mind. As a result of this 

analysis, the Board identified an estimated $4.9 million in fiscal year 2004 

and 2005 savings from overlap services that could be redirected to higherpriority broadcasting needs, such as expanded Persian language television 

for Iran and expanded Urdu language radio for Pakistan.13

Mr. Chairman, the Board has revised its strategic planning and 

performance management system to respond to the recommendations in 

our July 2003 report aimed at improving the measurement of its results. In 

that report, we recommended that the Board’s new strategic plan include a 

goal designed to gauge progress toward reaching significant audiences in 

markets of strategic interest to the United States. Our report also 

recommended that the Board establish key performance indicators 

relating to the perceived credibility of U.S. broadcasters, whether 

audiences are aware of U.S. broadcast offerings in their area, and whether 

 13The Board also identified an estimated $7.5 million in fiscal year 2004 and 2005 savings 

from transmission reductions during its 2003 language service review. 

Review of Overlapping 

Language Services 

Implemented 

Strategic Planning 

and Performance 

Management System 

Revised to Place a 

Greater Focus on 

Results 
Page 14 GAO-04-711T 

VOA is achieving its mission of effectively explaining U.S. policies and 

practices to overseas audiences.14

In response to our recommendation for a goal that would measure 

progress in reaching large audiences in markets of strategic interest to the 

United States, the Board replaced the seven strategic goals in its plan with 

a single goal focused on this core objective.15 The goal is supported by a 

number of performance indicators (at the entity and language service 

level) that are designed to measure the reach of U.S. international 

broadcasting efforts and whether programming is delivered in the most 

effective manner possible. Weekly listening rates at the entity level and 

target audience numbers by language service provide key measures of the 

Board’s reach. Other program effectiveness measures include program 

quality, the number of broadcast affiliates, signal strength, Internet usage, 

and cost per listener. 

In response to our recommendation for a measure of broadcaster 

credibility to identify whether target audiences believe what they hear, the 

Board added such a measure to its performance management system. 

Reaching a large listening or viewing audience is of little use if audiences 

largely discount the news and information portions of broadcasts. Our 

survey of senior program managers and discussions with Board staff and 

outside groups all suggest the possibility that U.S. broadcasters (VOA in 

particular) suffer from a credibility problem with foreign audiences, who 

may view VOA and other broadcasters as biased sources of information. 

InterMedia, the Board’s audience research contractor, told us that it was 

working on a credibility index for another customer that could be adapted 

to meet the Board’s needs and, when segmented by language service, 

would reveal whether there are significant perception problems among 

 14This Board’s strategic planning and performance management system includes its 5-year 

strategic plan, Results Act reporting (annual performance plans and reports), the Office of 

Management and Budget’s new Program Assessment Rating Tool, the annual language 

service review process, and annual program reviews of individual language services. 

15We also reported that efforts to assess the effectiveness of the Board’s new approach to 

broadcasting may be hampered by the lack of details on how the Board intends to 

implement each of its program objectives. Our September 2000 and July 2003 reports both 

noted that the Board’s performance plans lacked specifics on implementation strategies, 

resource requirements, and project time frames. The Board acknowledged these 

deficiencies and said that major changes are slated for future planning efforts. 

Reaching Large Audiences 

in Key Markets 

Broadcaster Credibility 
Page 15 GAO-04-711T 

key target audiences. However, to develop a similar measure, Intermedia 

told us that the Board would need to add several questions to its national 

survey instruments. 

In response to our finding that the Board lacked a measure of audience 

awareness, the Board has added such a measure to its performance 

management system. We determined this measure would help the Board 

answer a key question of effectiveness: whether target audiences are even 

aware of U.S. international broadcasting programming available in their 

area. Board officials have stated that this measure would help the Board 

understand a key factor in audience share rates and what could be done to 

address audience share deficiencies. We found that the Board could 

develop this measure because it already collects information on language 

service awareness levels in its audience research and in national surveys 

for internal use. 

Finally, in response to our finding that the Board lacked a measure of 

whether target audiences hear, understand, and retain information 

broadcast by VOA on American thought, institutions, and policies, Board 

officials we spoke with told us that they are currently developing this 

measure for inclusion in the Board’s performance management system. 

The unique value-added component of VOA’s broadcasting mission is its 

focus on issues and information concerning the United States, our system 

of government, and the rationale behind U.S. policy decisions. Tracking 

and reporting these data are important in determining whether VOA is 

accomplishing its mission. Officials from the Board’s research firm noted 

that developing a measure of this sort is feasible and requires developing 

appropriate quantitative and qualitative questions to include in the Board’s 

ongoing survey activities. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be happy to 

respond to any questions you or other members of the subcommittee may 

have at this time. 

For future contacts regarding this testimony, please call Jess Ford or 

Diana Glod at (202) 512-4128. Individuals making key contributions to this 

testimony included Janey Cohen, Melissa Pickworth, Addison Ricks, and 

Michael ten Kate. 

Audience Awareness 

VOA Mission Effectiveness 

Contacts and 

Acknowledgments 

(320270) 
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