
Is this the end of Radio Free Asia?
Following the announcement of the Trump administration to cut funding of the USAGM department VoA, Radio Marti, RFE/RL, RFA and possibly other USAGM sponsored stations will discontinue broadcasting.
Last week I received this email from RFA:
Dear friends,
Last weekend Radio Free Asia lost its grant and funding.
Unfortunately, we are unable to confirm any more reception reports.
If this situation changes, we will let you know.
As our relay sites stop transmitting our broadcasts, currently, we’re still airing evergreen programming on limited frequencies but it’s unclear how long this will continue.
Thank you for listening and also for your years of support and friendship.
RFA’s QSL Team
Personally I have mixed views on all of this. I saw an interview with Cubans on the closure of Radio Marti. An eldery man was truly disappointed. But a younger man said “I’ve heard of it, my granddad listens to it, but I never do”. I don’t know how many people still use short wave radio for their news. The younger generation typically relies on the internet. So with that in mind maintaining a shortwave radiostation is expensive and outdated.
That said: internet can be filtered or even blocked. Which is much more difficult for radio waves. Nevertheless the demolition of LW, MW and SW transmitters and antenna facilities continues in Europe. At the same time the Israel army resumed MW broadcasts of Galei Zahal, their army radio,ahead of their operations is Gaza and Lebanon. It might be that we will regret that we didn’t use some of the 800 billion to “rearm Europe” to maintain some of the legacy radio facilities. Time will tell.
