Second, radio broadcasting in general. Since the 1920s, the challenge for international broadcasting has been getting information over long distances and across national boundaries. Publications could be stopped at borders, and television had a short transmitting range. Indeed, radio is a relatively inefficient way to impart large amounts of information. If radio is to have a continued role in international broadcasting, there will have to be a good reason to use audio.
Many countries try to block that information from getting in.
And the new technologies have been remarkably unsuccessful in getting information into these closed countries. China and other countries have been almost completely successful in denying their citizens access to the Web sites of the Voice of America, BBC, CNN, and other news organizations. Indeed, there is a thriving industry manufacturing software for the purpose of blocking access to Web sites. In satellite broadcasting, the owners of satellite transponders have yielded to politico-commercial pressures from national governments. Perhaps because it has been an innovator in the new technologies of international broadcasting, the BBC has been particularly affected the interdiction of satellite broadcasting.