BBC World Service is 80!
“This is London” – Part 1 - Recently the BBC World Service celebrated 80 years of broadcasting. Started in 1932, it broadcast originally on short-wave only. Today it broadcasts on short-wave, FM, digital radio and the internet. Its audiences continue to grow. However, short-wave listening has declined. But for millions BBC World Service remains a lifeline to the outside world.
Short-wave is still important because listeners can catch the signal that travels thousands of miles across international boundaries, sometimes eluding the censors, by bouncing off the turbulent gases of the ionosphere, the layers of electrified gas several hundred kilometres above the earth. Listeners are used to the background noise of electronic warbling, whistling and hissing, that short-wave has reliably delivered for 80 years.
Category: Broadcasting / BBC / World Service
