Don’t shut down short-wave!

The latest official idiocy is the suspension of short-wave emissions by RTP International – a public broadcasting service picked up by Portuguese people throughout the world.

RTP’s argument for shutting the service down is that it has a “reduced number of listeners”. According to Lisbon’s “specialists”, short-wave radio is obsolete – and makes no sense in a world full of new technologies like the Internet, and distribution networks of accessible channels by cable and satellite.

But even if this argument were true, there’s always a place for old-fashioned methods. Short-wave radio is heard, for example, by fishermen at sea, by people living in the most inaccessible regions, or by drivers throughout the world. It’s a simple cheap way of maintaining contact with the country – and it’s still listened to by many elderly people living on their own abroad, for whom the radio is a faithful companion.

“Short waves” are the radio frequencies situated between 3 and 30 megahertz (MHz). They propagate through the ionosphere and travel huge distances from where they’re transmitted.

In Portugal, the short-wave service was inaugurated in 1954. On average it transmitted roughly 50-hours worth of programmes per day throughout Europe, Africa, Brazil, North American, Venezuela and the Middle East.

What’s baffling is that in 2002 RDP invested two million euros updating equipment and later, in 2005 spent another 3.338.000 euros modernising its Short-Wave Transmission Centre to be ready for the future «Digital World Service».

So what was that all about? Money down the drain?

At the time it was said that “short-waves represent a strategic objective affirming national interests in the global market and they are even more important when a country has interests of international relevance”. So was that all hot air and bluster?

RTP’s decision has sparked protests throughout the world. Even the broadcasters’ workers’ commission is against it, calling the move “unconstitutional, illegitimate, extemporaneous and irresponsible”.

According to RTP workers, the public station would do better to save money by “axing the 66 vehicles (which involve fuel and maintenance costs) used by the top brass, and costing more than 600.000 euros a year”.

Poor Portugal, more ravaged and impoverished by the day…