RCI gets one-year extension (01/26/97)

RCI gets one-year extension

by Christopher Guly

OTTAWA - Last year was a troubled one for Radio Canada International.

In January the Canadian government announced plans to shut down the 52-year-old international radio service.

In March Canadian Heritage Minister Sheila Copps said Montreal-based RCI would survive until the end of March 1997.

In December, Canadian Broadcasting Corp. president Perrin Beatty - who oversees RCI's mandate - said the CBC could not afford to carry RCI any more.

And, just before the end of 1996, Ms. Copps, who also serves as deputy prime minister, rescued it for at least another year. Under the plan, four federal government departments will contribute to RCI's annual $16 million (about $12 million U.S.) budget: $6 million each from Foreign Affairs and Canadian Heritage, $3 million from Foreign Affairs' Canadian International Development Agency and $1 million from the Department of National Defense.

Previously, the four government partners paid half of RCI's budget. The rest came from the cash-strapped CBC.

But although RCI's operating budget remains intact, and CBC continues to manage it, its future is guaranteed only until March 31, 1998.

Elzbieta Olechowska, who runs RCI's Europe Service - which transmits programming in Ukrainian, Russian, English and French - said the Canadian government has vowed that the international radio service will serve as a "cornerstone of Canadian telecommunications strategy." The problem, she said, is that no one knows exactly what that means.

"We're hoping something like that will happen, but we have no other details," explained Ms. Olechowska. She added that there has been some talk of expanding RCI into an international television service, but RCI Executive Director Terry Hargreaves said such a move could be prohibitively expensive to pursue. "It could run 10 to 20 to 30 times what our radio service costs to operate," he explained.

In fact, RCI's annual $16-million budget is far less than that of other international radio services, such as the BBC, which is almost 38 times larger.

The breadth of RCI's foreign language programming has been drastically scaled down over the last seven years. Gone are programs in Portuguese, Italian, Polish, German, Hungarian, Czech and Japanese. In addition to Russian and Ukrainian, remain Spanish, Mandarin and Arabic.

But, Mr. Hargreaves said that, with what RCI has, the international radio service is reaching a sizable audience of nearly 250 million, if RCI's co-production with Chinese state radio for a 30-minute, Monday morning program on Canada is included.

Without China, RCI attracts a worldwide shortwave radio audience of about 6 million, and around 10 million more through satellite and local downlink transmission, which is what Ukraine receives.

In addition to sending two hours of daily broadcasting via shortwave, RCI also has forged a cable partnership with Ukrainian state radio to transmit Canadian programming, and downlinks programs to several local stations in such metropolitan centers as Lviv and Kharkiv.

RCI announcer-producer Yaroslav Harchun, who packages a show on Canadian science, technology and trade for the five-member Ukrainian section, said the Canadian Embassy in Kyiv collects "bagfuls" of mail from listeners every other week and re-directs it to Montreal.

"We get letters, mainly from southern and eastern Ukraine - even from Crimea - from people who really appreciate receiving information on Canada to help them establish personal and business contacts," said Mr. Harchun, who has worked for RCI for the past 15 years.

That is just one reason why RCI must enjoy a stable future, argued Morris Diakowsky, who worked as a producer-announcer for the service in 1953-1954.

"It is very important for people in countries that are undergoing a readjustment in their political and social structure - such as Ukraine - to have as much broadcast time from abroad as practically can be given them, to not only tell them about other countries but to give them good news about good points of Canada," said Mr. Diakowsky, who today is president of the Canadian Foundation for Ukrainian Studies.

The cost of maintaining RCI, he said, is a small price the federal government has to pay, as closing it down runs the risk of losing a link to emerging democracies, such as Ukraine's. "The alternative is buying missiles, tanks, airplanes, ships and outfitting armies of the future," said Mr. Diakowsky.

Mr. Hargreaves agreed that RCI's role extends beyond radio broadcasting - particularly through its shortwave radio service. For example, RCI continues to send Ukraine shortwave programming, in addition to its cable and downlink arrangements. Why?

"Because you don't know what's going to happen," explained Mr. Hargreaves. "Ukrainian radio could turn around and decide that it's short of money and charge us 10 times what we're paying now to get on the national network. Or, who knows, maybe not in Ukraine, but someone like [Russian Opposition leader Alexander Lebed might take over and say he doesn't want all this foreign stuff and stations can't carry all this RCI stuff any more." Suddenly, said Mr. Hargreaves, Russians, without RCI shortwave programming, would lose an important link to the outside world at a time "when they would really need it."

However, neither Russians nor Ukrainians have to fear losing RCI or its shortwave radio service for at least another year. They and RCI staffers can breathe a little easier, for now.

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