BBC launches Korean language service covering North Korea --- DPRK government
may already be blocking some of the short-range frequencies, however
Leo
Byrne, September 25th, 2017
The
British Broadcasting Service [sic] (BBC) began its Korean language programming
on Monday, an announcement from the UK’s national broadcaster reads, and will
transmit news and radio to the entire Korean peninsula.
Its Korean
language programming forms part of 11 new foreign language services that the BBC
called the biggest expansion of its World Service since the 1940’s, with £289
million (USD$389,514,200) invested in the project.
"BBC Korea will be
reporting a fair and impartial news based on the tradition the BBC World Service
has established," Francesca Unsworth, BBC World Service director said in the
article announcing the new programming.
The new Korean language service
will broadcast 30-minute long programs for a period of three hours on shortwave
frequencies and one hour on medium wave frequencies per day.
According to
the article accompanying the launch, the shortwave service will begin at 15:30
(GMT) while the medium wave broadcast will start at 16.30 (GMT). The programming
will cover current events, the economy, sports, and culture.
While the
BBC article did not explicitly mention the DPRK, it also gave broadcasting times
in North Korea’s Pyongyang time, which is 30 minutes behind Seoul.
The
North Korean government strictly controls information flows into the country,
and already blocks some frequencies used by other radio broadcasters like Voice
of America, Radio Free Asia, and Free North Korea radio, among
others.
It’s not clear how easily the frequencies that BBC will broadcast
on can be picked up in the DPRK, however, said one expert familiar with radio in
the North.
"Both 5810 and 9940 shortwave frequencies are jammed right
now," Martyn Williams, author of the North Korea Tech website told NK News, who
also posted an example of the jamming on YouTube.
1800 UTC September 25,
5810 kHz Monitored in Seoul
"1341
mediumwave was also on air although I could not determine if there was
jamming."
"The jamming is strong, so it obliterates the signal even in
Seoul," Williams added, saying that he was able to tune into a remote South
Korea-based receiver to test reception from San Francisco.
Former
Ambassador Robert King, the U.S. Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights,
said in 2015 that an estimated 30 percent of North Koreans are tuning into
foreign radio broadcasts, adding they are considered much more effective than
more high-profile attempts to breach the information blockade, such as sending
balloons across the border.
North Koreans can tune into foreign
broadcasts via radio sets purchased on the black market or government issued
radios that have been tampered with to pick up non-government frequencies, while
some North Koreans have also built their own radios to pick up external
information. Edited by Oliver Hotham (via Artie Bigley, DXLD)