Page 52 - AIB | The Chanel | Issue 1 2013

THE CHANNEL | NEWS CHANNELS
compete in the national
marketplace. For example, VOR has
a strong broadcasting base in
Turkey – we are broadcasting on
FM in 50 cities, 24 hours, including
Istanbul. But we are just one of
many media working in the
Turkish market.
Are you doing similar things
elsewhere?
In Turkey we have only local
journalists working for us. This
model is not sustainable
everywhere. If we take the Asia‐
Pacific region, there are obvious
restrictions ‐ itʹs not possible to
broadcast on FM in China, and itʹs
practically impossible in South
Korea. We have some FM
broadcasting in France, 2 hours
daily in Paris. Of course we look at
each market and assess what the
opportunity and the need is before
deciding whether to make a major
investment in local production and
local relays. About four years ago
we had a new management at VOR
and after looking long and hard at
the effectiveness of our company
broadcasting we decided to
develop our online presence for all
of VORʹs languages and increase
our efforts to find ways of doing
local broadcasting.
What about your language mix?
We currently broadcast in 38
languages, and on the internet in 33
languages. Itʹs extremely difficult
though to find experienced
journalists who can work in these
languages, understand Russian,
work with the internet, and who
know what radio is about.
The biggest obstacle is recruiting
the right people. For instance, letʹs
take China. We are broadcasting to
China on short wave but our website
is the most popular Russian media
resource in China. There are less
than four people who really under‐
stand what there is to talk about.
If we look at India, radio is quite
successful for us as we have got FM
partners in India. But we have been
trying for the last two years to
create a website in Hindi ‐ we have
good people working on it but
almost no success in terms of
visitors, just a few hundred a day.
Itʹs not easy to understand what the
audience wants from this site, what
kind of information they are
looking for in what language.
What are you doing in the US?
VOR programmes are available in
the USA via satellite, cable, on FM,
and through mobile communication
links in 16 states. We have started
medium wave broadcasting in New
York and Washington DC and
produce 11 hours of programming
locally every day, with the rest of
programmes produced in Russia.
And we are on HD Radio in Miami
which is an experiment for us. In
London we broadcast 24 hours per
day on DAB and also have a team
that produces four hours a day
locally.
f you look at audience figures
in Russia and the rest of the
world, you see that the
audience for radio is only
decreasing slightly. Radio
offers depth, it offers you
the capacity to think things
over and take a critical attitude.
We are an international
broadcaster. The traditional concept
of international broadcasting was
almost killed off by new technologies
and the internet. Nowadays you
donʹt have to tune to a radio station
from a particular country to find
out details about that country – you
go straight to the internet. And
nobody is listening to short wave
any more except perhaps India and
some countries in Asia. So VOR,
like other traditional broadcasters,
had to find new ways to reach our
audience. We are actively involved
with FM radio and new standards
that have emerged ‐ DAB, DAB+,
DMB, HD Radio etc. ‐ all around
the world.
We at VOR believe that there is a
niche for international broadcasting
in every media market in every
country. Because there is an
audience demand for other points
of view – views which are different
from whatʹs available on the
national market. When we make
editorial decisions we try to
address the issues that people in
the particular country that we are
broadcasting to are interested in.
Itʹs important to be aware that
international broadcasters have to
I
Oleg Kupriyanov is Deputy Chairman on International Relations at the Russian
State Broadcasting Company, “The Voice of Russia”. After graduating in Sinology
he began his career in broadcasting, taking senior roles in Russian companies
TV-Centre, RTR and radio Mayak, as well as being a member of the Board at
Euronews and actively involved in training journalists. In 2009 he joined VOR
which is now positioning itself as a principal international source of information.
We asked him: How popular is radio still?
Our
website is
the most
popular
Russian
media
resource in
China
“
”
52 | ISSUE 1 2013 | THE CHANNEL
REPOSITIONING MAJOR