THE BBC last week took the first steps towards preventing its World Service
radio broadcasts being jammed or switched off by governments or rebels that
don鈥檛 like its message. The corporation has signed up to a digital satellite
radio service called WorldSpace, which will deliver a hard-to-jam signal from
space to a new generation of digital receivers.
The BBC hopes the deal will prevent a rerun of what happened during the
Kosovo conflict, when Serb troops quickly put local World Service transmitters
out of action. It also wants to get its news programmes into countries such as
Burma and Iraq, whose governments ban local relays and jam short-wave broadcasts
from outside.
鈥淚n any coup the rebels aim for the media,鈥� says Mike Whittaker of the World
Service. 鈥淲orldSpace has such a huge footprint that we can transmit a
high-quality signal over a wide area.鈥� World Service spokeswoman Gill Webber adds:
鈥淲e are keeping hold of the short-wave services but are using WorldSpace because
they are not under the control of local governments.鈥�
Advertisement
But despite the BBC鈥檚 hopes, 快猫短视频 has found that a question
mark hangs over its plans to beam into China: WorldSpace is wary of upsetting
Beijing. The company says it has yet to negotiate with the Chinese on what the
company can broadcast. 鈥淲orld Service will not be transmitted into China yet,鈥�
says Atef Awad, WorldSpace European marketing director.
Ethiopian lawyer Noah Samara, who calls the BBC deal 鈥渁 historic milestone鈥�,
set up WorldSpace in 1990 with the idea of using satellite technology to
broadcast to 鈥渋nformation-poor鈥� countries in the developing world. He has raised
$1.1 billion for the project from unnamed investors, and has already
launched two of the three geostationary satellites the service needs. The third
is due to be launched next year. Each satellite has three beams, and the beams
all carry 96 channels of audio coded using the MP3 sound-compression system
that鈥檚 used to send music over the Internet.
WorldSpace鈥檚 digital radio sets cost $250, but the firm predicts mass
production will drive prices down.