SofiaEcho.com reports: The BBC World Service has stopped broadcasting in Bulgaria. The radio station, accessible at 91.0 FM in Sofia, started operations in the country in 1940 [sic]. From today, the BBC’s English-language services will be available online at bbc.com/worldservice and via the Hotbird 2 direct to home satellite service.
In an embassy press statement, British ambassador to Bulgaria Steve Williams said: “I am sorry that the BBC World Service will stop broadcasting in Bulgaria on FM radio. Like other listeners, I will miss the high quality, impartial and comprehensive broadcasts.”
According to Bulgarian legislation, only Bulgarian-language programmes are allowed to be broadcast in Bulgaria; following the end of the BBC’s Bulgarian service, the only programmes that the BBC had in the country were in English.
on Sep 2nd, 2008 at 10:33
OK I wonder how long it will be before BBCWS start culling FM across europe and worldwide as it has with SW;same old excuse few listeners? I’ll bet that’s what they’ll do.
on Sep 2nd, 2008 at 10:48
If you carefully read the article, the reasons are explained as legal ones, which the BBC decided not to contest. It is a special case, and should be seen in that context. It has nothing whatosever to do with how many people were listening.
on Sep 2nd, 2008 at 11:02
I think the article is mistaken when it talks about the end of BBC World Television. what they really mean is that BBC got a licence to partner with a Bulgarian company to broadcast its Bulgarian language radio service. Now that has ended (in 2007 wasn’t it), the BBC has replaced the programming with English which wasn’t in the original agreement. English WS radio relays have gone in some other capitals too..Helsinki and Stockholm.
on Sep 2nd, 2008 at 11:21
Yes, of course, that makes more sense. I have corrected the item above.
on Sep 2nd, 2008 at 15:42
>[BBC] started operations in the country in 1940
This is highly doubtful. They probably mean BBC’s Bulgarian Service on the SW. Bulgaria was an ally of Nazi Germany during WWII, so I’m sure BBC would not be welcomed there. And later the socialist government in Sofia wasn’t so keen on London broadcasts, either. I believe BBC first appeared on a local dial in Bulgaria in 1990 or so.
Sadly, these linguistic/political bans are becoming a common place in the so-called new Europe and some aspiring EU members. For example, earlier BBC lost its affiliates in Czech Republic and RFI was forced to drop its FM relay in Vilnius, Lithuania. Georgia recently shut down Euronews in Russian. Poland doesn’t allow Euronews Polish Service for political reasons. And the list goes on and on.
Jonathan, R.Sweden’s website still lists BBC WS on 89.6 MHz in Stockholm from 2230 to 0600 with a bit of RCI/CBC thrown in. Finnish YLE Mondo (97.5 MHz in Helsinki) carries quite a few hours of “BBC from London“. I assume it’s BBC WS.
on Sep 2nd, 2008 at 22:01
Yes, 1940 was the year when the Bulgarian BBC broadcasts out of London started. They ceased on 23 Dec 2005, the same day than Polish and Slovenian.
In my opinion the cancellation of the BBC’s FM allocations in the Czech Republic and now in Bulgaria is reasonable. Why not giving these frequencies, this scarce resource, to other broadcasters who have a real affiliation with the served area? I’m amongst the people who did not applaud the decision to prolong the BBC’s licence for a 20 kW FM outlet in Berlin after they not only closed their German service but also their Berlin studio, leaving only a single correspondent there (and “no comment” was all they had to tell German journalists about this circumstance). But on the other hand they got a prolongation for three years only, so in theory the BBC’s run on 90.2 MHz in Berlin could come to an end in 2010.
Btw, the BBC outlets in Berlin (i.e. 90.2 MHz and until 1988 also 810 kHz) also carried RCI’s German service as long as it existed. This relay was (in)famous for the phone-quality feed from Montreal (at least it has been described to me as phone quality, perhaps it was in fact taken off shortwave, so indeed a relay in the true meaning of the term).
on Sep 3rd, 2008 at 12:57
Kai: isn’t there a very long history of English (and French) broadcasts in Berlin because of the special status of the city after the war? And recently the media authorities gave a license for NPR Berlin 106,1 (although that at least has some English-language content generated in Berlin)…so they seem to think there is some demand for English-language radio in Berlin. (At least I listen to it when I’m there…) Isn’t there a case for saying FM isn’t really a scarce resource anymore, since there are lots of alternatives (digital radio,internet, some more developed than others)?
on Sep 3rd, 2008 at 13:47
Kai, the RCI feeds were probably narrow-band satellite audio feeds, same quality as fed to Daventry for broadcast to Europe via SW. I guess there was nothing much above 4K, which was fine for HF, rather meagre for FM. I remember hearing them in 1980 at BBC Monitoring, where they kept Racals on 15325 kHz to use a shortwave feed from Sackville if the line went down. Later, NHK Radio Japan was even more restricted - now that really was a phone line over a shortwave relay (like Singapore). Also enjoyed your feature on Polish Radio history in German radio magazine Kurier. I think the ADDX must have one of the largest photo archives of radio stations in the world.
on Sep 4th, 2008 at 23:07
I think these lines were rather cable circuits than satellite links? Must have been the same standard than used at this time for TV coverage of sports events abroad: The own reporter (at the venue of course) via such a 4K line, mixed with the ambience audio that was fed together with the video with 10K (or even better) quality. At least this was the East German standard.
The ADDX picture archive (perhaps just excerpts from it) can be researched here: http://www.addx.de/archiv/archiv.php
And the radio-related gist of the referenced article is also here:
http://www.radioeins.de/programm/sendungen/medienmagazin/radio_news/beitraege/0/polskie_radio_euro_auf_sendung.html
Even more research, not appeared in print yet, followed a few weeks later…
http://www.radioeins.de/programm/sendungen/medienmagazin/radio_news/beitraege/0/polnisches_auslandsradio_auf_langwelle.html
And I guess you will also enjoy this current TV report about a location you have to my knowledge visited before, at a time when the studio complex from 1965 (called E-T) did not look like Aztekian temples yet (as already the teaser photo shows): http://www.rbb-online.de/_/zibb/beitrag_jsp/key=7907567.html
To continue the discussion about foreign stations in Berlin: NPR is really a good example because they only got a 200 watts frequency. There were plans to add 90.7 MHz from another site (Schäferberg, Berlin-Wannsee) to serve also the southwestern districts of Berlin, but finally NPR decided to do without it, thus it now relays the revived Radioropa (ex. 261 and 5980/5975 kHz if that rings a bell). What they did not get was the former AFN and later VOA frequency 87.9 MHz, here the VOA’s former partner station (Star FM) now broadcasts on its own.
And the circumstance that there are nowadays alternatives to FM could be used as big argument against the continued relay on 90.2 MHz: Why blocking this frequency, that could serve large audiences also in the rural areas around Berlin, for a station that by its own declarations only aims at the opinion formers and decision makers now, a crowd that would certainly be able to pull the BBC World Service off DVB-T? Btw, BBC World (the TV program) has left DVB-T in Berlin again after some time. I have not seen any explanations from the BBC’s side, only the statements from the network operator who emphasized that the service had been discontinued at the wish of the BBC.
on Sep 5th, 2008 at 12:17
Kai:
thanks for your comments, you always have interesting posts.
Regarding BBC World on DVB-T, someone has posted what looks like a statement from BBC suggesting that they decided it was not worth the money to broadcast in DVB-T to Berlin at http://berlin.barwick.de/blog/living/bbc-world-disappears-from-dvb-t.html
But of course I have no way of knowing it’s genuine.
I’m not an opinion former or decision maker, but as a native English speaker in Germany I’m very grateful for BBC on FM in Berlin and BBC-RFI in Saxony. It makes me feel more welcome as a guest in the country. (Meaning I hope they don’t always judge these things based on the size of the audience an FM station can attract.)