- Sean Gilbert just posted on the WRTH Facebook group: I have just been looking at the reductions in SW/MW output by international broadcasters ans SW output by domestic broadcasters (where possible) in a language-by-language form. I have been keeping records of the top 19 languages used by broadcasters, since the B10 season, and I can see a reduction in output on 18 of those 19 languages. The only language to show an increase is Tibetan. The languages that have suffered the most reduction (since the B10 season) are: #1 German (-53%); #2 Russian (49.6%); #3 Farsi (-48.8%); #4 Spanish (-45.7%); #5 Portuguese (-43.7%); #6 Indonesian (-36.9%); #7 French (-32%); #8 English (-31.2%); #9 Arabic (-28.5%) #10 Vietnamese (-22.5%) This is based on the schedules we use in WRTH and, as the data is processed in the same manner each season, this does give a reasonable portrayal of the situation. In contrast to this, Chinese is only down by -5% and Korean 1.1%, while Tibetan is UP 7.3%. The Far East languages, to be fair, tend to have a much slower decline than the more Westerly languages. The table below shows the top languages in order of popularity (i.e. frequency of use). Chinese is the language that stands out as being the one with a noticeably slower decline. This is borne out when you tune the SW broadcast bands! I will fill in the B13 data after WRTH has been published. The table is tabbed, but FB doesn't do wonders for formatting Language B10 A11 B11 A12 B12 A13 B13 last fm B10 % change English 1384 1251 1230 1150 1127 953 - -431 -31.14% Chinese 736 711 749 737 749 699 - -37 -5.03% Spanish 477 434 383 332 296 259 - -218 -45.70% Russian 456 424 328 281 274 230 - -226 -49.56% French 357 331 315 281 256 243 - -114 -31.93% Arabic 323 288 298 274 251 231 - -92 -28.48% Portuguese 252 213 187 167 157 142 - -110 -43.65% German 219 224 143 122 118 103 - -116 -52.97% Korean 177 162 172 176 180 175 - -2 -1.13% Pashto 134 134 122 122 110 110 NIL -24 -17.91% Farsi 123 109 79 75 83 63 - -60 -48.78% Vietnamese 120 116 112 100 98 93 - -27 -22.50% Hindi 117 100 97 109 105 102 - -15 -12.82% Indonesian 114 104 92 85 76 72 - -42 -36.84% Urdu 113 104 102 105 106 98 - -15 -13.27% Tibetan 110 111 113 113 116 118 + 8 7.27% Japanese 104 102 103 100 93 94 + -10 -9.62% Dari 96 102 98 98 88 78 - -18 -18.75% Overall 5412 5020 4723 4427 4283 3863 - -1549 -28.62% https://www.facebook.com/groups/wrthgroup/ (via Mike Terry, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1692, DXLD)
