In a move that will have every shortwave enthusiast saying "I told you so", Fiji's military dictatorship has ordered Radio Australia's local FM transmitters to be shut down.

International broadcasters worldwide have being scaling back their shortwave services, preferring to set up local transmitters in their target countries, seemingly oblivious to the fact that those transmitters will only continue to function as long as the local government remained friendly.

Radio Australia is fortunate that it still operates shortwave services to this region, but this should come as a hard lesson to all international broadcasters that local FM radio is no substitute for shortwave radio.

Australia's Ten network has announced that it will launch a 24-hour free-to-air sports station across metropolitan cities in 2009. The station, to be named "ONE", will be available on the network's HD channel 1, replacing the current Ten-HD programming, as well as the network's new standard-definition channel 12.

This is somewhat at odds with the network's committment earlier this year that it would continue to broadcast movies in high-definition, as this will no longer be possible once the new station begins.

From January 1st, 2009, all commercial television stations in Australia will be allowed to broadcast one extra standard-definition digital channel.

Link: Australian Stock Exchange announcement.

Ireland's national broadcaster, RTE, has now launched internet streams of the digital stations that started in August 2007.

The stations available are: RTE 2XM (alternative rock music), RTE Digital Radio News, RTE Junior, RTE Gold, RTE Radio 1 Extra, RTE Pulse (Dance Music) and RTE Choice; streams for these stations and RTE's FM stations can be found on the RTE website.

Furthermore, RTE has historically used only Realaudio streams; but now Microsoft Windows Media streams are also available.

The east coast stations of Australia's Nine network have started streaming their 6pm news bulletins on the internet.

The Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane stations broadcast half an hour of news at 6pm (0800 UTC) and it is now available worldwide, although unfortunately only in Windows Media Player and Silverlight formats, at this point in time.

The Australian government has put on hold the auction of new digital television licences, which were intended for providing new channels and mobile DVB-H television, according to a report in Melbourne's Age newspaper.

Known as channels A and B, one channel was going to be allocated to so-called datacasting and community television, with possible broadcasters including the indiginous broadcaster NITV, and the other was earmarked as a pay-TV service for mobile phones.

The new government plans for a technical and policy review before committing to an auction of the spectrum.

The World Radio TV Handbook have released their second update for 2008.
Continue reading "WRTH 2008 Update Supplement 2 released"

Radio Prague have announced the release of a special QSL card, celebrating the 85th anniversary of the commencement of regular broadcasts from Czech Radio.

To get one of your own, listen to their broadcast on May 18th, 2008 and then send a reception report to: Radio Praha, Vinohradská 12, 120 99 Praha 2, Česká Republika.

Nielsen Media research have released the results of the third 2008 radio ratings survey for Australian metropolitan stations, with some surprises in a couple of markets.
Continue reading "Australian Radio Ratings, Survey 3, 2008"

Inside the CBC is reporting that Canada's national broadcaster is to launch new channels in the coming 18 months, including a 24 hour news channel. Additionally, Radio One will be redeveloped and Radio Two will be repositioned - again, much to the dismay of some listeners.

The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that it is unlikely that Australia's commercial television operators will launch any new digital standard-definition multichannels as soon as they are legally allowed to do so. From January 1st, 2009, the previous government's restrictions on such channels will lapse. All three major commercial networks are currently allowed to broadcast separate programming streams on their high-definition channels, but in currently tend to limit multichannelling to afternoons and late evenings.

The BBC and ITV have launched a free satellite service for viewers in the UK. FreeSat will carry 80 television and radio channels - and 200 by the end of 2008 - and will primarily be of interest to viewers who are unable to receive the terrestrial digital broadcasting service FreeView.

While shortwave radio - at least in English - is declining, internet radio is booming. It was only a matter of time before listeners decided that they didn't want to be tied to their computer to listen to it. The Sydney Morning Herald has published a review of four internet radios: the Grundig IR6114, the Bush TR2015R, the ASUS Internet Radio and the Pinnacle Soundbridge Radio. Thanks to newtaste of aus.radio.broadcast for the reference.

After years of threats, it looks like Israel's international shortwave broadcaster, Kol Israel, will cease shortwave broadcasts of all languages other than Farsi on March 31st.

English, French and Spanish broadcasts can continue to be heard over the internet, with the following schedule:

Time (UTC)	Language
0430-0445	English
0445-0500	French
1030-1045	English
1100-1115	French
1800-1815	French
1815-1830	Spanish
1830-1845	English

The Israel Broadcast Authority (IBA) website still carries the for the last two days of broadcasts. If you're interested in catching them, the English schedule is:

Time (UTC)	Frequency
0430-0445	9345, 7545, 17600
1030-1045	15760, 13855
1830-1845	6985, 7545, 15640, 9345

The IBA also operates a number of domestic radio networks, which are available to international listeners via the internet:

• Reshet Aleph: talk and cultural programming


• Reshet Bet: news, current affairs and sport


• Reshet Gimmel: Israeli music


• Reshet Dalet: Arabic language station

The BBC has announced that it will be closing shortwave transmissions to the Carribean and reducing transmissions to East and South-East Asia, from March 23rd and March 30th, respectively.

There will no longer be any shortwave broadcasts to East and South-East between 10am and 5pm, and midnight and 2am, local time. Listeners are expected to use satellite, the internet or local FM repeaters, although we're not quite sure how they are supposed to do this if they're hiking through a remote jungle.

The BBC have started a publicly funded Arabic language international TV service, which is freely available on satellite and cable within the Middle East and North Africa.

Currently it will broadcast for just twelve hours a day, from 1000 UTC to 2200 UTC, but the intention is to run a 24-hour service later in the year. Funding for the station is from a government grant and savings made by closing the BBC World Service's Eastern European radio services.

The station's website can be found at bbcarabic.com.