RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

auđience in India. Further east, audiences to international radio are very much smaller . With the exception of Indonesia , audiences in most of east Asia , even for the major broadcasters , are at or below the one percent level. But the major broađcasters have high hopes for China . The beginnings of audience research there show that VOA and Radio Australia are achieving modest audiences (less than ten percent but more than one percent) in the major cities . BBC audiences in апу language seem to be at or near the one percent level but these measurements were taKen before the enormous improvement in reception produced in late 1967 by the new transmitters in Hong Kong , In Latin America (see Table 6), audiences for international radio аге generally guite small, very similar in stee to those f ound in Western Europe . Audiences during times of special news interest. For example, research in Argentina shows that there was a substantiat increase in listening to the BBC đuring the South Atlantic conflict of 1982. (A similar increase in auđience interest was recordeđ in Tunisia at the time of the US raid on Tripoli in 1986), Surveys , where it has been possible to repeat audience research, can show the trends over time . In Zambia, Кепуа and Nigeria there has been an increase in listening to the major broadcasters . In Pakistan, audiences to the BBC doubled in size from 1975 to 1982. Research has not yet shown what the trends are elsewhere in South Asia. In Japan there has been a decline while in Latin America audiences seem to have remained fairly level. A major activity of western broadcasters is towarđs the communist countries of East and Central Europe . Direct audience research involving surveys in the Soviet Union and the other Warsaw pact countries is not possible . The BBC , VOA and other western radio stations obtain information about their audiences from research carried out for the American funded stations in Munich , Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty RFE/RL) . Their auđience research involves interviewing East European travelers in West European and other countries . Results are weighted to correct demographic imbalances . The methods are rigorous and systematic but are not of course entirely reliable . Nonetheless , the results are valued by the broadcasters as they provide the only measure of impact currently available . Audiences to foreign broadcasts have remamed remarkably stable over recent years , although the BBC anđ VOA have both enjoyed a sigmficant growth in audiences ln Poland . Host listening is to broadcasts in local languages and the VOA and RL benefit in the

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