Bean counters push BBC to act of utter stupidity: BBC Arabic radio broadcast goes off the air after 85 years
Adapted from The Trenchant Observer, January 27, 2023
BBC Arabic Radio has gone off air since Friday, after 85 years of broadcasting, as part of a plan to cut costs and focus on digital programming.1
The corporation said it is cutting hundreds of jobs in its World Service and has been forced to make the cuts because of the United Kingdom government’s imposition of a freeze on the license fee money it receives. The way in which the BBC is funded has changed in the last year or two.
At least 382 jobs worldwide will be cut as the corporation focuses on digital content production amid a $35m funding gap.
The BBC announced in September that the Arabic language radio service was among 10 different foreign language services that would cease radio broadcasts, including the Chinese, Hindi and Persian services.
It is hard to overstate the stupidity represented by the decision to stop radio broadcasts in Arabis, Chinese, Hindi, and Persian, concentrating on digital content instead. The shortfall in funding is $35 million, a drop in the bucket compared to the outlays involved supporting Ukraine with military aid to defend itself against Russian military aggression.
It appears that the number of people in government decision making roles who are capable of thinking and connecting the dots has greatly diminished.
More shocking is the revelation that the British Foreign Office either is not involved in decisions regarding the BBC, or is itself staffed by idiots with government oversight authority.
The government whiz’s responsible for this decision don’t seem to be aware that autocratic governments like those in Arabic countries, China, Iran, and Russia can and do block internet access to BBC programs.
They may think that e.g., Russians, can always use a VPN to listen to their programs on the Internet. They probably don’t understand that many people, particularly in rural areas, may not have access to an internet connection or be afraid to use it given government surveillance, and the risk that someone might report them.
They probably don’t understand how it is easy to listen to a short-wave broadcast in secret, where putting up an antenna for internet reception exposes listeners to identification and repression by the state.
They probably don’t understand that dictatorships increasingly have tools to identify individuals using VPN networks on the internet, exposing listeners to identification and repression by the state.
They probably don’t understand how important international broadcasts such as those of the BBC Arabic or Persian service are to demonstrators and others fighting for freedoms in Iran, Egypt, Syria, China, and even India, where freedom of information is curtailed.
With idiots like this making decisions with widespread and significant repercussions, one has to wonder how the nations of the Free World will ever prevail in the perennial struggle between free countries and thos with authoritarian regimes.
This stupidity is not limited to Britain. The United States stopped its shortwave broadcasts of the Voice of America in 2008. We could certainly use them now.2
An inexpensive and relatively effective way of broadcasting accurate news and the truth to citizens in authoritarian countries exists, and has a long record of success. The fact that younger government officials may have never seen a short-wave radio or heard a short-wave broadcast should not prevent free countries from using this low-tech but highly effective means of breaking through the Chinese firewall or all the other barriers dictatorships erect to prevent the truth and accurate news from reaching the ears of their citizens.
“BBC Arabic radio goes off air after 85 years; The Arabic language radio is among 10 different languages that are ending due to inflation and licensing fees, BBC says,” Al Jazeera, January 27, 2023.
See “Ukraine War, February 26, 2022: The current fighting; Playing “the China card”–again; Voice of America Russian-language short-wave broadcasts to Russia,” The Trenchant Observer, February 26, 2022.
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