BBC CHINESE SERVICE 40TH ANNIVERSARY PRESS RECEPTION
(28 APRIL 1981 Douglas Muggeridge, Managing Director, External Broadcasting:
"That will give you some idea of the response we are getting.
It is heartening and gratifying after so many years. The
importance of China in a political and economic sense -
and from a sheer demographic point of view cannot be over-
emphasised. The challenge thus presented to us as a major
international broadcaster is of great importance and, on
this anniversary occasion, I wish I could tell you that we
have the necessary resources to meet this challenge. But
I am afraid I cannot for 2 main reasons.
In terms of the number of hours we broadcast each week to
China we are well down the league table. The Soviet Union
leads with a massive 206 hours a week, followed by the Voice
of America with 63 hours. The BBC broadcasts only 15 hours
a week and that total is easily surpassed by even India and
Albania, which broadcast about 20 hours each. Clearly we
should like to increase our services in Mandarin and Cantonese
but our present budgetary position makes this impossible at
present.
(8)
However, even more important is the problem of audibility.
All BBC programmes directed towards China in both Chinese
and English are fed from the U.K. by short-wave or by satellite
to Singapore and relayed on by short-wave from the BBC's
Far Eastern Relay Station at Kranji. The distance therefore
we have to cover is significantly greater than that covered
by the V.0.A. from their Relay Station in the Philippines
or by the Russians from their many transmitters just across
the Chinese border. It is thus not surprising that in many
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