The Broadcasting Board of Governors is allocating approximately $3 million in its FY2013 request to Congress as part of a renewed strategy to deliver content to China and Tibet via Radio Free Asia and Voice of America broadcasts.
The news was announced at the board’s annual meeting last week in Miami.
The move reverses an earlier BBG decision to cut some services in China, including VOA Tibetan radio broadcasts and the VOA Cantonese service. The board has directed top agency management to identify various areas to offset the cost of the new strategy, including migrating satellite frequencies to the KU band and accelerating other transmission optimizations.
“China’s highly competitive media market and its government’s aggressive jamming of BBG content are long-standing challenges,” said BBG board member Michael Meehan.
The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting, an organization that supports the free flow of uncensored news from the United States to countries without free media, applauded BBG’s new strategy for China and Tibet.
CUSIB has been critical of the proposed cuts to services, especially radio transmissions to Tibet.
