Maybe it's a change in the political winds, which dictate how Her Majesty's government spends her Her Majesty's money.
Actually, you're 100% correct on this one. The cuts at the BBC have everything to do with the new "austerity" government of new P.M. Cameron. Although for how long that lasts is a good question: Cameron was elected on a wave of free-floating anger that he skillfully channeled into a need for cuts. But so far his efforts have singularly failed to spur private sector hiring to offset the loss of 500k government jobs. (500k in a country less than one-fifth the population of the US, mind you...if it were done here, it'd be like doubling the number of unemployed overnight) So in essence, he's made things a LOT worse over there, with the promise that they'll get better soon. But if things
don't get better soon...i.e. by the next election in 2015...it's a good bet he'll be run out of office on a rail.
That long-winded explanation is to say that the future of the BBC is very much up in the air. Much like PBS in the USA, the BBC is often quite popular in the UK...often at a visceral level. So it's possible a lot of cuts might be restored. OTOH, a lot of the cuts are being made in services/regions of the world that tend to serve niche markets, and thus might not be popular enough.
Calling the BBC WS a "propaganda service" is a bit out of line, though. The BBC is known for not being terribly objective about reporting on
British issues, this is true. But most of their reporting on "international" (i.e. everything except Britain, which includes the USA) is usually quite good. In fact, that's a major reason why most stations carry the BBC: their reporting on the United States is often excellent. And their reporting on US interests/efforts undertaken overseas (by which I mostly mean our wars, but other stuff, too) is very good, very factual, and very objective. And let's not forget, for a large portion of the globe, they are the sole source of reporting/journalism, period. A lot of the world doesn't have a robust and free media like the US does, after all.
The BBC (distributed in the US by PRI) is relatively cheap to us pubradio stations, that's true. IIRC, once you pay for more than five hours a week, you get unlimited access so you can use as much as you want. Although there are no savings realized by replacing an hour of ME with the BBC; you pay a fixed priced for ME whether you use one hour or two, and whether you repeat it or not.
As for why most stations don't air more WRN or BBC during the daytime, it's simple: listeners generally like national news better than international news. The reason for
that is also simple: generally it's harder to make an international story have a "local hook" (i.e. a reason for Joe Average for care) than it is for a domestic story...simply by virtue that a domestic story is affecting other Americans, if nothing else.
Also FWIW, Pacifica is working right now with Al Jazeera English to bring in some of their programming to the USA. I personally have been heckling Pacifica to start airing a lot more of it on their Ku satellite than just the 5-6am ET show. I'm well aware that AJE has some significant bias issues, and they tend to view themselves as "crusading reporters" (words chosen carefully there) more than they probably should. But they're nevertheless a pretty serious news agency with serious assets backing them, and most importantly: their voice is listened to by a huge percentage of the Middle East, and thus their perspective is worth knowing.
