| RCI ACTION COMMITTEE Defending Radio Canada International - Canada's Voice to the World |
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| Head of Radio Austria International supports RCI Action Committee As you will see in the following letter our colleagues at Radio Austria International are in a very difficult situation. Next week Austria's Broadcast Law will be passed. In the next few weeks the domestic service, ORF,will have to decide on the future of the international service. Please take the time to read his letter and a supporting document that gives more details of their situation. The Radio Austria International website is at: http://roi.orf.at. The following letter was addressed to the RCI Action Committee: Dear friends, This is a message of heartfelt sympathy from Radio Austria International. Your fall from grace was kind of sudden, ours is more of a creeping development. Last year the government grant was cut by 28 percent (from 160 million shillings, ca. 10 million Can$). This year it was cut by another quarter. So within one year our budget was reduced to almost half. Consequences: reduction from 24 hours of transmission to 14 hours; replacement of ca 90 percent of the German language output by domestic program; reduction of transmissions to North, Central and South America, Australia, Asia and Africa; reduction of staff by more than half (from 100 to less than 50). Future: the government will end its grant this year. Financing Radio Austria International will be passed to ORF. And unless the draft of the new Broadcasting Law which is in the process of finalization remains unchanged in this respect, ORF will have no obligation of operating Radio Austria International. Should ORF decide that there is not enough money for international broadcasting it can shut down ROI at its discretion. Isn't it strange that two affluent nations like Canada and Austria try to convey the impression that they can not afford the small expense of an international radio program? I wish you all the best in your efforts to save as much as you can from RCI. As participant of last year's Challenges VI in Montreal I am somewhat stunned at this turn of events. Please count on me for all initiatives your committee is planning. Yours sincerely, Roland Machatschke Managing Director, Radio Österreich [Austria] International |