"running dogg" wrote in message
...

Ah. You see, the VOA was (was, since it in effect doesn't exist anymore)
run by an agency of the US govt, USAID I think.

USAID is the US Agency for International Development. t helps farmers get
better crops, etc. The USIS, US Information Service, is what you are
thinking of.

VOA very much exists. It just is reducing its usage of SW and increasing in
other bands and media.

In most countries, the
national broadcaster is a govt agency. Since the BBC is not controlled
by the UK govt, the BBC can make all sorts of screwy decisions and
nobody can tell them no.

The BBC is a government chartered orgainzation, and financed by government
taxes.

(In contrast, the screwy decisions made at the
VOA were done by presidential appointees. The President and Congress
could have decided to hire new people to run the place.) So the BBC
slashes the WS, they slash domestic programming, they make a lot of
people upset, and nobody can rein them in. At least the big corporate
broadcasters in the US (NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, Time Warner (who runs the WB
network), Paramount Pictures (UPN)) have majority stockholders and
boards of directors who can fire the CEO if he ****s up.

What has been screwed up at the VOA? They are simply moving into the new
centrury.