The following reply via a posting on ODXA, is in response to the on going opinions and disdane from shortwave radio listeners on Radio Netherlands' decision to end their North American service. Shortwave Central hopes this finally puts an end to this dispute and DXers will move on. Radio Netherlands has not closed their entire shortwave service - only those targeted towards North America. Try tuning in other target areas.
Gayle Van Horn
A lot of people seem to have the idea that we have a level of "top management" that decides these things. In fact, that's not the way it works here. Jan Hoek is 'captain of the ship', but delegates all decisions about technical matters to those who understand them. The decision we eventually arrived at was reached through a meeting of minds in the Strategy department (which I work for), the Programme Distribution separtment, and the English department. It was discussed and evaluated extensively since summer 2007. No money-saving considerations were involved. We are not saving a cent on transmitter time, merely redirecting the transmissions to an area that will give us more listeners per dollar. The Bonaire transmitters will be used to boost our Spanish service, which gets feedback from South America many times larger than English to North America.
Shortwave to North America has been on the agenda for several years. Following the BBC's withdrawal seven years ago, all international broadcasters felt the effect. It was especially tough on RNW, since a lot of people used to discover us on 6165 when tuning across the 49 mb looking for the BBC, one of whose frequencies was 6175.
We battled on, but bigger broadcasters than us, notably Deutsche Welle, pulled out. The response to our North American shortwave broadcasts was reduced to a trickle. Even then, we decided to give it one last push, and asked regular listeners to let us know they were out there. By regular, I mean at least once a week, since our feature programmes are weekly. The response continued to be poor.
The problem with the responses we did get was that I recognised a lot of the names as SWL's and DXers who respond in a similar way to other international broadcasters when they announce cuts. Now, I'm not saying they never listen to us, but when it gets to the point that you know many of your listeners by name, you have to question just how many there are out there.
The business has changed dramatically in the last five years. Interactivity is the buzzword now - forums, online feedback etc. We still get a lot of feedback for our English programmes from Africa and Asia, but relatively little from North America. Most of the feedback we do get from North America comes via our website - in fact, over 50% of the page views are from North America.
We are not surprised by this trend - other international broadcasters have noticed the same thing. Perhaps you are not aware that the EBU has an international broadcasting group that meets twice a year, and the broadcasters share ideas and experiences with each other. So the idea that RNW should in some way be an exception doesn't hold water. The market has changed, and all the broadcasters - big and small - are affected. The only reason some stations haven't yet cut their North American shortwave services is that not all of them constantly evaluate what they do. We have to, as the Dutch government is demanding ever more information about how we spend the budget it gives us.
So in that sense, there's financial pressure to justify each activity, and if we can't justify it we have to stop it. But nobody put pressure on us to decide one thing or another. It was purely the result of a methodical analysis of the situation. I personally regret it, but from a professional level it was, in the end, inevitable. What I find pathetic is the attempts of some people (not anyone on this list) to claim, without any supporting evidence, that we are stupid, we don't know what we are doing, etc. On the contrary, we spent a lot of time making sure that we were not mistaken about the size of our North American shortwave audience. But at the end of the day, the facts are indisputable.
Andy. (Sennitt)
Andy,
I did not mean for that term to be applied to you. I assumed that the final decision was made at a level far higher than you. I work in an industry that is constantly under financial pressure and the employees are constantly describing all financial decisions as coming from bean counters. That is no excuse for what I did but it does explain where my mind happened to be.
I have always appreciated your honesty, integrity, and service to the hobby, and will continue to do so. I apologize for making you feel slighted or made to seem insignificant in any way.
Mark Coady
Editor, Your Reports/Listening In Magazine
Co-Moderator, ODXA Yahoogroup
Ontario DX Association
earlier post:
Media Network says that The State We're in is carried on local FM and sattelite, so I took a look. It's too bad we won't have the other good programs we're used to, but half a loaf, eh? They listed public radio station WGBH as carrying The State We're in for the Boston
Either their schedule is old, or Media Network was optimistic about who would carry the program. I'm not about to listen 24/7 for a week to see if I can find it, and no one else in New England is listed. If you live here, you're out of luck (Dan Malloy, KA1RDZ/Oct 20/ODXA)
The shortsightedness of this decision reveals the bean counters at Radio Netherlands to be totally lacking in their understanding of the small North American market for international radio. The idea of shortwave radio is that it serves a widely dispersed market cheaply.
Those who are most prone to listen international radio are either doing it via the internet or shortwave - satellite radio's market penetration is not there yet. And forget CBC's overnight service who have them on for 55 minutes starting at 1:05 AM. Aside from shift workers and insomniacs, who else is up at that hour who is sober
enough to listen and comprehend the program?
It really is unfortunate as Radio Netherlands used to be a dominant player in international broadcasting. When the BBC abandoned North America, Radio Netherlands stepped right up to the plate and took over the BBC's former times and frequencies from Sackville for a while.
And about their listener survey they so proudly cite --- who on this list ever got contacted about their listening habits? It's fine to put a poll on the website but not everyone goes there but radio listeners do go to their radio dials. I just finished one of those week long radio surveys put on by BBM. Of course I only entered local AM and FM stations while I was in my car or at work. But I dutifully noted in the survey that when I am at home I listen to shortwave (Mark Coady,
Editor, Your Reports/Listening In/ODXA)
It was mentioned for several weeks (months) on their nightly broadcasts that they were interested in hearing about listener habits in North America. I did reply, but it was, like my replies to BBC and DW surveys, not the winner (Mick Delmage, Canada/ODXA)
Mark, I heard RNW appeal on a nightly basis for months and months for comments by listeners on their listening habits and use of shortwave. Can't understand how anyone who was a regular listener would miss that (John Figliozzi, NY/ODXA)