RE: BBC cutting news jobs

["Brian Vita" <brian_vita@cssinc.com>]

The purpose of the World Service was to spread the civilized "gospel" of the
British Empire into the far wild and less civilized (in their view) reaches
of the world.  In the age of funding cutbacks, you have to evaluate the
"payback" of each dollar spent.  Apparently they didn't feel that the amount
that they were spending equaled or exceeded the perceived benefit.

VOA's product was to spread the word of America's view of democracy,
anti-communism and other political views to places in the world that our
government felt needed to hear the message.  Like the BBC, when those in
charge felt that its need was no longer as vital, it got cut back.



Brian T. Vita, President
Cinema Service & Supply, Inc.
75 Walnut St. - Ste 4
Peabody, MA  01960-5626
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-----Original Message-----
From: Garrett Wollman [mailto:wollman@lcs.mit.edu]
Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2003 12:43 PM
To: Brian Vita
Cc: boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org
Subject: Re: BBC cutting news jobs


<<On Sun, 26 Jan 2003 08:23:04 -0500, "Brian Vita" <brian_vita@cssinc.com>
said:

[Re: BBCWS to North America]

> What do you contribute to them that would make paying for the broadcast
> worth their while?

The same could be said of 99% of their audience (not to mention that
of RCI, VOA, and almost every other major non-religious international
broadcaster).

> Are you in their prime listening area? NO

Do they have a `prime listening area'?  (Not really.)

> Are you likely to use any of the services promoted on the station?
> NO

The BBC World Service does not have any `services promoted on the
station' other than itself.

> Are you even a displaced British citizen? NO

Do you know something about Sven that the rest of us do not?

At the time the decision was made to cease broadcasting to North
America, the BBC management was unaware that most of the stations in
the US which carry their programming do so for only a few, usually
non-prime hours per day.  In many other countries, the stations which
relay the World Service do so 24x7, as a courtesy of the host
country's broadcasting services.

-GAWollman