BBC ends shortwave service in Europe

The Herald Tribune has published a story by Doreen Carvajal on the ending of BBC shortwave services to Europe.

It says:
"The British public broadcaster has been reducing its shortwave transmissions over the past seven years, eliminating services to North America and Australia in 2001 and South America in 2005. Last March, the BBC started reducing European transmissions, finally cutting off a transmitter that reached parts of southern Europe on Monday."

"There comes a point where the shortwave audience in a given region becomes so small that spending money on it can no longer be justified," the broadcaster said in a statement.

Modern modes of communication have been squeezing out shortwave services in developed countries, where programming is available on FM radio, on the Internet and on iPods with wireless connections.

The article quotes Jonathan Marks, a former radio executive and consultant for international broadcasting as saying the decision by the BBC was simply another sign of shortwave radio's "long, slow fade."

Read the full story at
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/18/business/bbc.php