Audiences to the listed foreign broadcasters in Japanese were low, and most listening was highly occasional. Radio Moscow and Radio Beijing (which both broadcast on mediumwave as well as on shortwave) had the highest audiences.
The BBC had the highest total audience (albeit very small) of the stations broadcasting only on shortwave.
TABLE 1
LISTENING TO FOREIGN BROADCASTING IN JAPANESE
%
Weekly Regular Occasional TOTAL Output Audience Audience AUDIENCE (hours)
%
%
Radio Moscow
35:00
0.5
1.0
1.6
Radio Beijing *
45:30
0.3
1.0
1.3
Radio Korea, Seoul *
63:00
0.2
0.4
0.6
BBC
7:00
0.1
0.4
0.5
Radio Pyongyang, N. Korea
67:05
0.1
0.3
0.4
Radio Australia *
14:00
0.0
0.2
0.2
All the other stations listed had total audiences of 0.1% or less
* Broadcasts on mediumwave as well as shortwave
When a choice between mediumwave and shortwave is possible, mediumwave is usually preferred by listeners. The only exception is Radio Moscow; a half of its listeners in Japanese usually listen on shortwave.
A comparison with the 1983 survey shows that the rank order of the leading foreign broadcasters in Japanese has not changed. There has been a reduction in the overall level of listening to all the stations.
3.6 The audience for the BBC in Japanese
The BBC Japanese Service had a total audience of 0.5% of the sample, and a regular audience of 0.1%.
In the 1983 survey, the total BBC audience in Japanese was 1.5%, and the regular 0.4%. While the decrease in the total audience is statistically significant, the regular audience figures are both so small that the difference between them is not significant in statistical terms and could have occurred by chance.
The 0.1% regular audience figure is, given the relatively small size of the sample, too small to attempt an audience projection with any confidence. Within the range of error inherent in all sample surveys, the maximum audience projection would be in the region of 250,000 people aged 13 and over.
As the number of Japanese Service listeners contacted in this survey was very small, it
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