venerdì 10 agosto 2012

Vatican Radio leaving SW and MW, somewhat

Glenn, I get a newsletter from DICI and they had the following link within the most recent issue:http://www.dici.org/en/news/vatican-radio-leaving-shortwave-and-medium-wave-spectrum/
(Jack Smith,
http://www.icanhascheezburger.com/
Stulti rident linguam Latinam, Aug 10, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Viz.:

10-08-2012 Filed under From Rome, News 3-vatican_radio_ [caption]

On July 1, 2012, the Santa Maria di Galeria Transmission Centre, located near Rome, suspended its shortwave and medium-wave transmissions to Europe and America. "After celebrating its 80th birthday in 2011, Vatican Radio is ready to open a new chapter in its history by committing its message of service to the Gospel and the Church to new communication technologies." On June 12, Father Federico Lombardi, Director of Vatican Radio, explained to the press the reasons for this decision: Europe and America are the regions in the world where local rebroadcasts and Internet access are now the ways most often used to listen to the radio.

The Vatican spokesman pointed out that this decision would enable Vatican Radio to achieve significant savings in its budget. Indeed, the commission of cardinals responsible for supervising the finances of the Holy See and the Vatican City State has regularly emphasized that the costs connected with the communications organizations — Vatican Radio in particular — had to be reduced drastically. This is why the radio division will complete in 2013, along the same lines, a plan for staff reduction that was started in 2003.

Until then, listeners are being informed about the new situation and advised to connect to Vatican Radio by Internet, either live or on demand, or by the satellite Eutelsat. Vatican Radio's programming in 40 languages can be accessed throughout the world, live on 5 internet channels and on demand (as a "podcast") at the site
http://www.radiovaticana.va 

The news and documents published in writing in 40 languages and 13 different alphabets on the website are also an important source of information, as well as the RSS service and the daily updates sent to subscribers in different languages.  (Sources:  apic/imedia/radiovatican – DICI no. 295 dated August 10, 2012)

DICI = Documentation Information Catholiques Internationales

Leaving SW to Europe and Americas is old news, and not completely true. But what about ``completing staff reduxions by 2013`` --- will that also mean phasing out SW completely? (gh, DXLD)