Conspiracy theory?

[Miss Tuned]

In theory, under-developed countries that have never heard-of, let alone heard anything off the Internet. As VOA and alike have struggled with, there is no way to know how many listeners fall under that category. So instead, VOA and alike just assume everyone in the .5mV/ calculated pattern is listening. At least that's what they tell Congress..

VOA's short wave programming is frankly bizarre. Hour after hour of pop music and rap music, with news bulletins at the top of the hour. I don't know how they can justify spending money on high powered shortwave transmitters to kick out pop music - it's not like Africa is short on FM pop music stations.

 

[CTListener]

The real issue is not "who is broadcasting?" but "who is listening?". With the content formerly limited to SW now all over the internet, who would listen to low-quality AM with static and fading on SW?

With China controlling what its people can access on the internet that way it does, maybe those BBC Chinese broadcasts do have an audience. I assume Chinese citizens are free to own and listen to those multiband portables that manufacturers there still grind out -- or are those produced for export only?

 

[Miss Tuned]

With China controlling what its people can access on the internet that way it does, maybe those BBC Chinese broadcasts do have an audience. I assume Chinese citizens are free to own and listen to those multiband portables that manufacturers there still grind out -- or are those produced for export only?

Any "objectionable" SW broadcasts are jammed within China, usually with either a relay of their CNR-1 domestic station or (more commonly now) with a looped broadcast of cacophonous Chinese folk music called the Firedragon. You're free to listen to SW radio within China, but you will struggle to hear the likes of Radio Free Asia or the BBC in Mandarin.

Vast numbers of Chinese evade the web blocks by the use of VPNs - it's a cat and mouse game between the people and the authorities - so there is some flow of independent online information into the country, it's just made more of a pain rather than impossible.

 

[davideduardo]

In theory, under-developed countries that have never heard-of, let alone heard anything off the Internet. As VOA and alike have struggled with, there is no way to know how many listeners fall under that category. So instead, VOA and alike just assume everyone in the .5mV/ calculated pattern is listening. At least that's what they tell Congress..

But those countries have, for the most part, large numbers of local stations. Check how many FMs are in Ouagadougou, La Paz or Port-au-Prince and you'll find that there are about three times as many as there are in New York City. Nobody, but nobody, listens to shortwave in such places.

The only targeted nations where SW may be justified are places like Iran, China and a few other totalitarian regime nations. Otherwise, it is a waste of money.

And, with the advent of smartphones, in many "third world" nations people now use phones and online-only services to be paid and to pay, totally obviating the need for bank accounts or paperwork. In many places, Internet technology has replaced personal transactions, even for the lowest income people.

 

[Kelly A]

VOA's short wave programming is frankly bizarre. Hour after hour of pop music and rap music, with news bulletins at the top of the hour. I don't know how they can justify spending money on high powered shortwave transmitters to kick out pop music - it's not like Africa is short on FM pop music stations.

For many years the goal has been: Play the hits and hopefully listeners stay around for the news. When I was traveling in the Middle East, Radio Sawa, a similar model from a U.S. Grantee Middle East Broadcasting Networks, did this model pretty successfully. It was common to hear someone on the street, or driving in a cab with Radio Sawa playing. Most of Sawa's stations are FM, with a couple high power MW stations in Cypress and Kuwait.

 

[kenglish]

Back to the original subject, can we get Herb Jepko back?
It might be fun to just hear something besides controversy. There must be tapes somewhere.

 

[kenglish]

Was there some specific FCC rule that suddenly changed what shortwave stations could broadcast?
I remember stations that had popular programming. The problem seemed to be that ad buyers could never wrap their heads around the idea of non-U.S. audiences. Seems like big advertisers, like Coke, Pepsi, McDonalds would like to get their messages to as many folks as possible. People in Africa, as well as the Eastern US like a little refreshment at times, with their rock and roll.
Is there a law that said it had to be crazy-talk?

 

[gr8oldies]

Back to the original subject, can we get Herb Jepko back?
It might be fun to just hear something besides controversy. There must be tapes somewhere.

He and all of his then-elderly listeners are long gone

 

[gr8oldies]

Was there some specific FCC rule that suddenly changed what shortwave stations could broadcast?
I remember stations that had popular programming. The problem seemed to be that ad buyers could never wrap their heads around the idea of non-U.S. audiences. Seems like big advertisers, like Coke, Pepsi, McDonalds would like to get their messages to as many folks as possible. People in Africa, as well as the Eastern US like a little refreshment at times, with their rock and roll.
Is there a law that said it had to be crazy-talk?

Coke is going to be advertising on local media in those other countries, not for a handful of shortwave hobbyists. I remember the ill-fated KUSW, which mostly had per-inquiry ads for record albums.

 

[CTListener]

Back to the original subject, can we get Herb Jepko back?
It might be fun to just hear something besides controversy. There must be tapes somewhere.

In 2021, reruns of his old show would bore listeners to tears and be completely irrelevant. Jepko also was a bit of a huckster, pitching his own insurance company and travel agency every night. A typical group conversation ("rag chew") among ham radio operators taped on some late night in 1980 and broadcast on AM radio 40 years later would probably be more entertaining.

 

[Mediafrog+]

Back to the original subject, can we get Herb Jepko back?
It might be fun to just hear something besides controversy. There must be tapes somewhere.

Yikes, now I have the “Nitecap” theme music running through my head, just as on KSL more than 50 years ago:

 

[gr8oldies]

In 2021, reruns of his old show would bore listeners to tears and be completely irrelevant. Jepko also was a bit of a huckster, pitching his own insurance company and travel agency every night. A typical group conversation ("rag chew") among ham radio operators taped on some late night in 1980 and broadcast on AM radio 40 years later would probably be more entertaining.

I used to get together with some other 2nd and 3rd shifters on a 2 meter net starting at 11:45pm and lasting until the last participant went to bed in the early 80s. We had people listening on scanners. We probably should have done a radio show.

 

[RadioFan2J3]

VOA's short wave programming is frankly bizarre. Hour after hour of pop music and rap music, with news bulletins at the top of the hour. I don't know how they can justify spending money on high powered shortwave transmitters to kick out pop music - it's not like Africa is short on FM pop music stations.

That music stream, VOA1, isn't run much, if at all, on the short wave transmitters.

It is a 24-hour stream on the satellite feeds, but is more aimed at the 24-hour VOA FMs and the affiliate stations who wish to carry that feed.


Many of the VOA 24-hour FMs will run VOA1 music programming during program times when other programming is not scheduled. That other programming will depend on the specific location of the FM transmitter, by country. That other programming might be other English language programming but in a few specific locations, the other programming might be in languages appropriate to that location.

 

[gr8oldies]

That music stream, VOA1, isn't run much, if at all, on the short wave transmitters.

It is a 24-hour stream on the satellite feeds, but is more aimed at the 24-hour VOA FMs and the affiliate stations who wish to carry that feed.


Many of the VOA 24-hour FMs will run VOA1 music programming during program times when other programming is not scheduled. That other programming will depend on the specific location of the FM transmitter, by country. That other programming might be other English language programming but in a few specific locations, the other programming might be in languages appropriate to that location.

Then again, what's the purpose of the US government cranking out 24/7 music formats overseas?

 

[TheBigA]

Then again, what's the purpose of the US government cranking out 24/7 music formats overseas?

Good will. Some countries put value in promoting cultural and artistic content to the world.

 

[davideduardo]

Then again, what's the purpose of the US government cranking out 24/7 music formats overseas?

The purpose is to attract listeners to the local stations, and then insert supposedly unbiased news and information into the format locally in each location.

 

[davideduardo]

Was there some specific FCC rule that suddenly changed what shortwave stations could broadcast?
I remember stations that had popular programming. The problem seemed to be that ad buyers could never wrap their heads around the idea of non-U.S. audiences. Seems like big advertisers, like Coke, Pepsi, McDonalds would like to get their messages to as many folks as possible. People in Africa, as well as the Eastern US like a little refreshment at times, with their rock and roll.
Is there a law that said it had to be crazy-talk?

Those locations have plenty of local stations with content selected for the different taste groups in each location.

There is not a country that is not under a totalitarian government that does not have local ad agencies and one of them has the Coke account in each place.

When I built my first station in Ecuador, the first agency buy I got was for CocaCola and it came from the Guayaquil office of McCann-Erickson Corporación de Publicidad, S.A. The big international accounts had agencies in every country long before that, and my first station went on the air in 1964.

But in many of those countries there were no stations in the smaller markets, so local band short wave was used. So people had SW radios. But as more and more local stations, particularly FMs, went on, there was no need for SW. The local stations disappeared and so did the use of short wave radios.

 

[davideduardo]

Good will. Some countries put value in promoting cultural and artistic content to the world.

As Radiofan pointed out, the music is fill to insert in between local programming if needed on VOA transmitters specific to each nation or region. As mentioned, it is intended for local use by repeaters or originators in other nations and distributed by satellite.

Some may not be aware, but at least in the past the VOA, through US embassies in many nations, offered taped VOA material to local stations. Shortwave was not the only distribution, even going back 50 and 60 years.

 

[Miss Tuned]

As for US commercial shortwave, its programming is just not something that is going to be of interest to anyone other than the most strident conspiracy nuts.

So-called "free speech" WBCQ out of Maine runs hour after hour of the homophobic convicted violent sex offender "Brother" Stair; regular shows from far-right racist convicted criminal Hal Turner; and multiple hours of other right-wing racist conspiracy programming. They now also have a multi-million-dollar high-power transmitter running 24/7 flat-earth, end-of-the-world bullcrap, paid for by an Egyptian cosmetics magnate.

I question the sanity of anyone who is not a far-right headbanger who subsidises the operation of these stations by buying airtime. Several non-political "hobbyist" broadcasters rent time on WBCQ, WRMI etc. This mix of fascism and wacky religion is not the only way to run this kind of brokered-time SW station - the German station Channel 292 runs the hobbyist and music broadcasts while steering clear of politics and, for the most part, religion. It helps that it's bound by German laws that prohibit things like Holocaust denial, which is commonplace on the US outlets.

The question to the likes of Allan Weiner is - do you believe the conspiracy crap your stations peddle, or are you just in it for the money?

 

[Mediafrog+]

Some may not be aware, but at least in the past the VOA, through US embassies in many nations, offered taped VOA material to local stations. Shortwave was not the only distribution, even going back 50 and 60 years.

Acutally quite a few SW broadcasters offered "transcription" programs to local stations year ago. Radio Netherlands was one such example.