Radio Taiwan International’s Shortwave Transmissions in English
Something is weird at Radio Taiwan International (RTI). Their English-language transmission for South Asia on 9405 kHz, at 16:00 UTC, usually comes in rather well in Europe, too. However, the opening bulletins are always old news. It was the Friday bulletin when I listened on Monday (yesterday), and the Monday bulletin when I listened again on Tuesday (today). On both days, the audio files they had chosen for transmission were actually correct – Monday’s program was according to schedule with "Beyond the Reefs" and "Doomscroll News Report" on Monday, and "Hear in Taiwan" on Tuesday. But why the old news on an otherwise current reel?
I found the same pattern on July 11 last year, when that Friday program ran the Thursday news bulletin.
This means that a news bulletin that the European audience gets to hear in French and German at 19:00 UTC on one day, will be beamed to South Asian listeners only a day – 21 hours – later.
The English transmissions are still worth to be listened to, but RTI gives away a classical ace that radio could and should have: speediness, if not realtime newsbreaking.
Suggestion: let’s send the occasional reception report to RTI’s English service, and express our surprise that the only English-language transmission available on shortwave (as far as I know, it is their only one) broadcasts old news. To show that we care might help keeping the program on air.
#broadcasting #foreignRadio #RadioTaiwanInternational #shortwave #Taiwan