Mount Evelyn DX Report: YOUTUBE PLEAS TO ABC

YOUTUBE PLEAS TO ABC - SAVE SHORTWAVE

Further to yesterday's post here, two YouTube videos have come to light in the last 48 hours urging the ABC to reconsider it's plans to shut down both Radio Australia and the Northern Territory Shortwave Service. And an insightful opinion piece on the issue has appeared on the website of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).

Pacific Leaders Join Shortwave Fight

Firstly, the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands, Henry Puna, has signed a petition demanding the ABC not axe its vital shortwave radio service. Secondly, Donald Pelam, Vanuatu’s Trade Commissioner to Australia, has made a video appeal to the broadcaster. Here are his comments and concerns:

Outback Shortwave Radio Crisis

The second video is an impassioned plea from one of the two Federal Government politicians who has been leading the fight to stop the closure of the NT Shortwave Service, Senator Malarndirri McCarthy. She is a former ABC newsreader and journalist who began her cadetship in 1989 and worked across Australia as a news and current affairs television and radio reporter. In 1993, after a trial run at presenting the late news from Sydney, McCarthy became the weeknight newsreader for ABC News in Darwin. McCarthy co-established Borroloola's first community radio station, B102.9FM The Voice of the Gulf in 1998 with assistance from the ABC, and also set up the Lijakarda Cultural Festivals & Media, Arts & Training Centre for Yanyuwa, Kudanji, Garrawa & Mara people from Borroloola. Here is McCarthy in a short YouTube video presentation:

Both videos above are available at the ABC Friends website.

Silencing Australia’s Shortwave Voice in the South Pacific

Finally, The Strategist is the commentary and analysis website of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, an independent, non-partisan think tank based in Canberra. The opinion piece written by Graeme Dobell appearing here outlines the potential folly of this decision on a number of levels.

Killing shortwave disregards—disenfranchises—an unknown number of listeners. As broadcasting policy, it’s highly questionable. As strategy, it’s dumb—another bout of recurring Oz amnesia about its South Pacific role, responsibilities and history.

ASPI asked the ABC: How many shortwave listeners does Radio Australia have in PNG and the South Pacific?

ABC spokesman: ‘While there are no firm figures on audiences numbers in these regions, they are understood to be low.’

Q: What percentage of RA’s users in PNG and the South Pacific get the content by shortwave?

ABC: ‘This level of data is not available.’

No evidence-based policy there.

Dobell goes on to point out:

My understanding is the ABC will save $2.8 million annually. Some cash is pledged to build extra FM transmitters in the South Pacific. The sequence is strange: terminate the service immediately and dispense with those listeners. Then start to look at (partial) replacements which may not be ready for several years. Mind the gap!

The ABC calls shortwave an ‘outdated technology’. That’s a developed country view. Other positive descriptors matter in the South Pacific: cheap, low tech, resilient and still widely used, especially beyond the cities.......

In 2014, Radio Australia’s PNG Tok Pisin asked its audience how they were getting the service—80% of the text responses were people listening on shortwave. An 80% shortwave listenership could be an underestimate because many villagers still don’t have mobile phones—no texts from them.

You can continue reading this excellent article at The Strategist website: Silencing Australia’s Shortwave Voice in the South Pacific.

The pressure is mounting but we are not convinced that the ABC is listening, or listening with any understanding. Could it be that Michelle Guthrie, as a former employee at Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation group of companies, just doesn't think that the little people in society really matter?

73 and good DX to you all,

Rob Wagner VK3BVW