The President’s budget request for Fiscal Year 2011, sent to the Congress today, includes $768.8 million for the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), an increase of 1.5 percent from the FY 2010 funding level. The request reflects the continued critical role of BBG broadcasts in support of US foreign policy goals.
The FY 2011 budget supports key new initiatives:
- Upgrading the BBG’s global satellite distribution capacity, infrastructure, and network control centre
- Expanding FM, digital, and new media opportunities
- Improving digital workflows and expanding distribution to mobile devices
- Adding 24/7 FM transmitters in Afghanistan to carry Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and Voice of America (VOA) Pashto and Dari programming
- Creating Radio Free Asia (RFA) video programming in Burmese,Tibetan, Mandarin, and Vietnamese
- Diversifying distribution of VOA content in Africa
- Addressing critical personnel and capital needs in RFE/RL bureaus
The proposed budget also continues funding for ongoing programming to critical audiences, including:
- 24-hour streams for VOA Persian News Network television and RFE/RL Radio Farda to Iran
- Alhurra, including Al Youm, the daily three-hour Alhurra Television programme broadcast live from the Middle East
- Radio Sawa to the Middle East
- Afia Darfur to Sudan and Eastern Chad
- VOA and RFE/RL Pashto programming to the Afghanistan/Pakistan border region
- RFE/RL and VOA Dari and Pashto programming to Afghanistan
- VOA Urdu radio and television broadcasts to Pakistan
- VOA Somali to Somalia
- a 10-hour coordinated RFA and VOA stream to North Korea
- a 30-minute, five-day-a-week VOA Spanish television programme for Venezuela
The FY 2011 budget request balances competing policy priorities with available budget resources. The request proposes to reduce contracting costs and other Agency support expenses through efficiencies. The request also includes several programme adjustments, including the closure of selected language services and programmes, operational efficiencies in broadcast services, and realignment of transmission networks.
Further detail on the requested BBG budget is available here.
(Source: BBG Press Release)
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on Feb 2nd, 2010 at 01:19
you have to wonder with no launchers available in the Us invertory for comsats, plus it takes about a year to get them in the pipeline…how in the hell are they going to do this?
Ah, baling wire and string with paper cups?
on Feb 2nd, 2010 at 16:20
I REQUEST TO GIVE VOA HINDI SHORTWAVE RADIO BUDGET BBG’S FY 2011