Friday, November 01, 2013

Reductions in SW/MW output by international broadcasters

- 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)