The cold war was the state-backed broadcasters’ heyday, with big budgets for propaganda wars about the virtues and vices of capitalism and communism. Powerful short-wave transmissions required costly kit; getting hold of the frequencies required international arm-twisting.
New technology has cut costs and demolished most barriers to entry. Wavebands matter less than bandwidth. Even for those unable to watch or listen on the internet, satellite dishes and fibre-optic cable are hugely expanding the choice of programmes. Incumbents are struggling. In the past year the BBC World Service lost 8m viewers and listeners. Of the six American taxpayer-financed broadcasters that measure their reach, five see a decline.
Since 2006 China, France, Iran, Japan and Qatar have launched English-language TV news channels. China has committed $7 billion to international news. That is more than 15 times the annual budget of the BBC World Service. Last month it introduced a second English-language news channel, CNC World.
The new arrivals are conquering territory (and sometimes hiring staff) shed by established Western organisations. Short-wave radio is a signal example. Since 2000 Voice of America has cut the number of short-wave frequencies on which it broadcasts by 24%, to 200. The BBC has abandoned short-wave broadcasts to Latin America, North America and most of Europe. In the same period China Radio International has almost doubled its short-wave output (see chart). It even broadcasts from Texas. Meanwhile the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees Voice of America, proposes to abolish the last of its short-wave transmitters in the United States.
Gobbling up short-wave audiences gains mostly older, poorer and more rural listeners. But the big battle is for urban opinion-formers, who consume their media chiefly by satellite and the internet.
Before 1990 Kenya had just one, state-owned, television station. It now has 20 television broadcasters and 80 licensed radio stations playing everything from rap to Christian sermons.
Read more at The Economist.
