April 2013 has seen announcements from two major national broadcasters to reduce their shortwave broadcast schedule.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) say the World Service English global schedule will be simplified with fewer regional variations from Sunday March 31, 2013.

Shortwave and medium wave transmissions in English will be reduced to a minimum of 6 hours in total each day.

Steve Titherington, Senior Commissioning Editor for BBC World Service, said: “We know that increasing numbers of people are accessing World Service on FM, online, and television. For those who can’t access these platforms, we’ve tried to ensure that they will continue to hear to the best the World Service has to offer at times of the day when they are most likely to tune in.”

In the United States, the Voice of America is reducing some of its radio transmissions from April 2013, and ending shortwave broadcasts to regions where audiences have alternative ways of receiving VOA news and information programs

The transmission reductions allow Voice of America to comply with budget cuts required by sequestration and to avoid furloughs of staff members.

When the new broadcast schedule goes into effect on March 31st, cross-border shortwave and medium wave broadcasts to Albania, Georgia, Iran and Latin America will be curtailed, along with English language broadcasts to the Middle East and Afghanistan.

The new broadcast schedule calls for reductions in some shortwave and medium wave radio broadcasts in Cantonese, Dari/Pashto, English to Africa, Khmer, Kurdish, Mandarin, Portuguese, Urdu and Vietnamese.

Read the full announcement - http://www.insidevoa.com/content/voa-reducing-radio-frequencies/1629194.html

Read the full BBC announcement - http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2013/ws-new-schedule.html