Why are the freedoms
of women in Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan so constrained? Is Islam to
blame? Is it a consequence of war in the region, or of poverty? Or do the
reasons lie elsewhere? These questions form the basis of a new series on openDemocracy Russia..jpg)
Just a few days before the presidential election, openDemocracy Russia and the Russia Foundation hosted three leading activists and journalists for a fascinating panel discussion on elections, civil society and the new Russia. Here we present transcripted video highlights from the event.
On Saturday, almost a week after the Duma elections, Moscow and other Russian cities and regions witnessed the biggest display of popular discontent seen in recent memory. oDR presents a photoreport from the rallies.
On Sunday, unknown arsonists set light to the apartment of oD author Aleksey Matsuka in an apparent attempt to kill him. openDemocracy calls on the international community and Ukrainian authorities to come together and work to protect Aleksey and his colleagues.BBC World Service: ‘jobs for the boys’
Letter in Daily Telegraph 23 December 2008
This is the latest in a series of letters concerning the future of the BBC's Russian service (cf openDemocracy Russia 9 November, 14 November and 27 November)
Sir,
We are grateful to Andrew Pierce for his informative article about how the
Foreign Office minister misled parliament with regard to the advertising of the
post of Director of the World Service (Ed:
article printed below) .
The Foreign Office minister was, no doubt, himself misled by the BBC
management. He has, so far, shown great faith in them - nearly all that
he said in the Westminster Hall debate of 16 December was taken straight from
letters by Nigel Chapman. Might it not now be time for the Foreign Office
to adopt a more questioning attitude towards Chapman's bland reassurances?
It is clear from even the most cursory comparison of present and future
broadcasting schedules that Chapman's (and the minister's) claim about
‘increased cultural output' is entirely empty; all longer features about
literature, history, British culture, etc, are to be axed. It is equally
clear - contrary to another of the minister's claims during the same debate -
that there is more than enough evidence of pro-Kremlin bias in the output of
the Russian Service. Their refusal to publish the Russian text of Anna
Politkovskaya's last book on their website is one example of such bias.
As for the murder of Aleksandr Litvinenko - the Russian service gave far
more air-time to the views of the Kremlin than it did to those of its critics.
More shocking still, the producer of the only programme to give fair
coverage to all points of view received an official reprimand from the World
Service management - even though this programme was far milder in its criticisms
of the Kremlin than a later Panorama documentary.
To maintain the BBC World Service's reputation and credibility, the new
Managing Director must be chosen through a fully open selection process, with
full consideration of the availability and qualification of external
candidates. In addition, a new managing director must be authoritative in news
and current affairs, have wide international perspectives, must be capable of
resisting pressure both from the UK government and from other governments and
should not believe that the World Service can be founded on the perceived
importance of marketing. To impose a closing date for applications of
January 4, 2009 is to foreclose all these options.
Yours Sincerely,
Robert Chandler (translator of Russian Literature)
Teresa Cherfas (TV and radio documentary producer; features producer, BBC
Russian Service 1985-88)
Sergei Cristo ( BBC radio journalist, 1994-2000)
Martin Dewhirst (Honorary Research Fellow, University of Glasgow)
Greg Hands (MP for Hammersmith & Fulham)
Diran Meghreblian (former current affairs editor of BBC Russian Service)
Donald Rayfield (Emeritus Professor of Russian and Georgian, Queen Mary,
University of London)
John Roberts ( Director of the Great Britain-USSR Assn/Britain-Russia Centre
1974-1993)
Elisabeth Robson (former Head of BBC Russian Service)
Irina Shumovich (Producer, BBC Russian Service 1989-2003)
Sir John Tusa (Former Director, BBC World Service)
From The Daily Telegraph 19 December 2008
BBC in £300,000 'jobs for the boys row' over director's post
The BBC is embroiled in a "jobs for the boys row" after
refusing to consider external candidates for a £300,000 director's post.
By Andrew Pierce
The decision to exclude outsiders for the director of the World Service, which
is funded by the Foreign Office, will put the corporation on a collision course
with the government.
On Tuesday Bill Rammell, the Foreign Office minister, was challenged by the
Tory MP Greg Hands, in a Commons debate about then world service, about the
next director.
Mr Rammell insisted the job would be open to everyone. He said: "He asked
me... whether the advertising process for the director of the World Service
will be open, and open to external candidates. I can reassure [him] that, on
both points, they will."
Yet the very same day the job description was published in Ariel, the BBC's
in-house newspaper, which made clear that it was an internal appointment which
would not be publicised externally.
The closing date for applications, January 4, has given only 11 days for
candidates to apply creating the suspicion that the BBC has already decided who
it wants to run the World Service which broadcasts in 32 languages to different
parts of the world.
Mr Hands said: "This does sound like a jobs for the boy stitch-up. On the
very day that the minister was misleading me and the House of commons the BBC
was saying only internal applicants need apply.
"This is an important public appointment with a huge salary. I am afraid
this does not look right. Only hours after the debate a key ministerial
reassurance is not being upheld. I have written to the Foreign Office to demand
an explanation."
A BBC spokesman said: "The position of Director, BBC World Service, will
be advertised internally. This is standard BBC practice and if no suitable
candidate is found through this process then the search will be widened."
When Nigel Chapman, the outgoing director, announced he was resigning from the
World Service, a group of historians issued a statement urging the BBC to take
care with the appointment. It said: "We hope that the BBC will now appoint
to the post of World Service director someone with a genuine respect for the
intelligence of listeners, a good knowledge of international affairs and a
determination to defend the World Service against attempts by any government to
interfere with its independence."
Russia: raid on Memorial HQ
What was the real reason behind yesterday's raid by armed police
on the St.Petersburg headquarters of the human rights organisation Memorial? Below,
we publish a statement from the board of Memorial, containing the basic details
of the story. However, the pretext offered by the Prosecutor General's office
does not hold water, as Memorial's statement makes clear.
Some Russian human rights lawyers are maintaining that the real reason goes back to Memorial's screening a month ago of the film Revolt: the Litvinenko Affair, which has been banned in Russia.
BBC Russia Service: A Resigning Matter
On 25 November the Director of the BBC World Service Nigel Chapman submitted his resignation. Discussion has raged during recent weeks over changes proposed by the World Service to the programmes broadcast by the Russian Service. These changes apparently motivated by a desire to update the format of the programmes, dispensing with features and concentrating on providing more news via the internet.
Arguments against these changes have been advanced by Robert Chandler, Professor Donald Rayfield and John Dunn, to name but a few of the 100+ Russian specialists and Russophiles who have protested. Only about 20% of the Russian population has access to the internet, and for many only at work, they point out. So who is it that the BBC is actually broadcasting for?
The answer of the paymaster, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, might well be that their target audience is not grannies in Omsk, but the decision-makers of the future. The latter do probably in most cases have internet access. But if FM broadcasting has been seen to be so vulnerable to the whims of the Kremlin (Russian re-broadcasters withdrew cooperation following the Litvinenko affair), then is a website not also likely to be vulnerable?
In a letter to The Times of 15 November Irina Shumovich, who worked for the Russian Service from 1989-2001, expressed her doubts about the impartiality and integrity of some of the journalists who have come from Russia to work there during the last 15 years. She suggested that ‘dedicated presenters were chosen not for their charisma and integrity, but for their dedication to the management.' The only section, she says, that still produced programmes of intellectual distinction and outstanding cultural depth was the Features Department.
Nigel Chapman, the Director who has just resigned, is regarded by Britain's Russophile community as having shown a poor grasp of Russia and its current situation. As Robert Chandler has written: ‘We hope that the BBC governors will appoint...someone who respects the intelligence of listeners and who does not seek merely to pander to the Russian or any other authorities.'
Letter to the Times from Irina Shumovitch 15 November 2008
Sir, I worked for the BBC Russian Service from 1989 to 2001, and witnessed the beginning of its decline (letters, Nov 10 & 14). When I joined the service in 1989, it had a vibrant, if somewhat eccentric, atmosphere of creativity. Intellectual debate was an integral part of programme making, originality was encouraged and each member of the service took pride in his work.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, John Tusa, then the director of the World Service, lifted the ban on the recruitment of journalists who had been employed by the media in their countries. For the Russian Service it meant recruitment of the people who, before the collapse of the Soviet regime, had worked for the Soviet propaganda machine. They had excellent radio skills, good English but no idea about balanced reporting and treating people with trust and respect. Many of them have gradually taken editorial positions in the Russian Service and started, in a very subtle way, bending BBC editorial guidelines to suit their political views.
With the new style of editorial leadership, the broadcasts of the Russian Service became more and more bland. "Dedicated" presenters were chosen not for their charisma and integrity but for their dedication to the management.
By the time I resigned in 2001, creativity in the Russian Service was stifled, individualism frowned upon and an atmosphere of fear and cynicism dominated. The only section of the Russian Service still producing programmes of intellectual distinction and outstanding cultural depth was the features department.
It is hardly surprising to me that, when economic necessity dictated, the editors of the Russian Service decided to close the features section, the last centre of excellence and free-thinking. What I find astounding is that Nigel Chapman allowed them to take advantage of his ignorance.
Irina Shumovitch, Producer, Russian Service, 1989-2001, London N5
Letter from Robert Chandler 19 November 2008
Sir,
Roland Oliphant ("The BBC at Dusk", JRL, 211) quotes Sarah Gibson (the head of the BBC Russian Service) at great length but appears unaware of the arguments made by myself and others in four letters published recently by the Times and also in postings on the websites of "Open Democracy" and "Index on Censorship".
Our central point, not discussed by Oliphant, is that the Russian Service cannot speak with an independent voice if it makes itself dependent on the Russian authorities. During 2003-2007 the Russian service invested heavily in FM, thus making itself totally dependent on the co-operation of Russian rebroadcasters. Predictably enough, Russian rebroadcasters withdrew their co-operation as soon as conflicts between Russia and Britain (e.g. the Litvinenko affair) arose.
Having learned nothing from this disaster, the BBC is now investing heavily in something no less vulnerable: a website. If another serious conflict arises, I have no doubt that access to this will be blocked. Once again it will become apparent that the BBC has played into the hands of the Russian authorities. Instead of putting all their eggs in one basket, the BBC should explore as great a variety of options as possible: e.g. broadcasting from neighbouring countries or from satellites. Or might it be possible to use digital short waves?
Another problem with the Russian service's new strategy is that "the Internet, with audio stream, podcasts, video and multiplatform content"(Sarah Gibson's own words she takes pride in being up-to-date with her vocabulary and her technology) is not available to as many Russians as Sarah Gibson seems to imagine. Even in Moscow and Petersburg I myself know very few people with access to broadband. Gibson gives the impression of complete ignorance of the reality of most Russians' lives. I would like to know what proportion of visitors to the Russian service website live in Russia and what proportion live abroad. Is the BBC committed enough to freedom of information to disclose these figures?
There is no justification for existence of the BBC Russian Service unless it provides something different from any other broadcaster or website. And there are, at present, some good Russian-language online news services. The Russian service should be proud, rather than ashamed, of what has made it unique. This, above all, means serious pre-recorded features incorporating a variety of voices and viewpoints.
If Oliphant had taken the trouble to give any serious attention to Russian service programming, he would have realized that the management has indeed been growing more and more terrified of offending the Kremlin. A year or so ago, the Russian service cancelled a scheduled repeat of a Litvinenko feature and removed it from their web site within less than 24 hours, instead of leaving it there, as normal, for a week. I managed to listen to this programme before it was removed from the site. Around the same time I also watched a BBC Panorama documentary. The Russian service programme, repeatedly branded "unbalanced" by the World Service management, was a great deal milder in its criticisms of the Kremlin than the English-language Panorama documentary.
The Russian service management also declined a suggestion from one of Politkovskaya's translators, Arch Tait, that they publish Politkovskaya's PUTIN'S RUSSIA on their website. This would have been an important scoop for the Russian Service; the original text was in the possession of the translator and no one in Russia knew it. Nevertheless, even though the declared purpose of the Russian service website was to publish material that could not easily be published within Russia, they refused it.
The BBC has not, as Oliphant suggests, been measured in its response to our criticisms. Far from it the Director of the World Service, having happened across a draft of our initial letter to the Times, phoned me up and spent 20 minutes trying anxiously to persuade me of the importance of "the strategic realignment" of the Russian service that was being carried out. I believe that he also phoned the Times itself more than once. His aim was to stifle any debate before it had even started. He does not want the Russian Service to be a vehicle for serious debate, nor does he wish it to be the subject of debate.
Oliphant's article, incidentally, was first published by ‘Russia Profile'. Nikolay Zlobin, a member of the board of ‘Russia Profile' has stated publicly that he is confident that ‘ "Russia Profile" will help people in the States to understand the point of view of Russia [my italics R.C.] with regard to those questions where there are still disagreements between Moscow and Washington.' It is perhaps not surprising that promoters of ‘the point of view of Russia' should welcome the plans of the BBC management to dumb down the Russian service.
Letter from Robert Chandler 26 November 2008
Sir,
On November 25 Nigel Chapman announced that he is to resign from the World Service.
We are very grateful to the 100+ leading writers, historians, social
scientists, translators and journalists who have both publicly and privately
supported our campaign against the destruction of the most valuable parts of
the Russian service. We hope that the BBC governors will appoint, as the
new Director of the World Service, someone who respects the intelligence of
listeners and who does not seek merely to pander to the Russian or any other
authorities.
In his letter of Nov 12 Nigel Chapman revealed an abyss of incomprehension of
the present state of Russia so startling that I have been shamefully slow to
notice it. He wrote that ‘the inaccuracies and assertions
from Robert Chandler about the BBC World Service (letter, Nov12
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article5132737.ece)
[...] imply we are prepared to compromise our independence, and our editorial standards, to attract audiences.'
What I actually said was the opposite of this.
I suggested that the Russian service has compromised its independence not in
order to please its audience, but in order to please the Russian authorities.
Winning the respect of listeners and placating the authorities are very
different things. These two goals are in fact incompatible, and this is
the real problem faced by the Russian service. There is no easy solution,
but Nigel Chapman has appeared resolutely unaware that the problem even exists.
We hope that during the remaining months of his stewardship he will start
to listen to the voices of people who know more about Russia than he does.
It must surely mean something that almost ALL the leading historians of
twentieth-century Russia (and there were several I did not have time to
contact) signed the 7 Nov letter to the Times.
Yours Sincerely,
Robert Chandler
(translator of Russian literature)
Donald Rayfield (Emeritus Professor of Russian and Georgian, Queen Mary,
University of London)
Irina Shumovich (former Russian service journalist)
BBC’s Russian Service: debate continues
From Dr.John Dunn, 10 November
More detail on the impending changes to the BBC's Russian service,
including a list of the programmes due to close and a long interview with
the head of the Russian service, can be found at:
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/russian/programmes/newsid_7716000/7716295.stm>
On the question of broadcasting platforms the BBC does have a problem:
short-wave reception can be difficult and of poor quality: remember the old
joke about the distinguished foreign visitor who learned his English by
short-wave radio; short-wave transmissions can also be jammed (what did the
Russians do with all their jamming transmitters?). Nor does there seem to
be scope at present for expanding other radio outlets. In this context the
wish to concentrate more on the Internet does seem understandable.
Nevertheless there are problems over and above the incalculable threat of
the site being blocked. The first is the BBC creates thge impression of
concentrating its efforts on the c.20% of the Russian population that has
access to the Internet, and by emphasising the use of direct broadcasting,
podcasts and the like, on that subset of the 20% that has access to the
Internet in a form that allows them to use those facilities, which is tough
if you don't have broadband or have access to the Internet only at work.
The other problem is that the more bells and whistles you add to a web-site,
the harder it becomes to use, as the existing BBC English-language web-site
shows only too well. Reception of BBC programmes over the Internet is far
from perfect and, worryingly, seems to have got worse after recent
'improvements'.
Incidentally, I wonder to what extent the BBC, along with other
quasi-official British institutions, are contemplating the implications of
the recent court decision in favour of the British Council.
John Dunn.
Honorary Research Fellow, SMLC (Slavonic Studies)
University of Glasgow, Scotland
Letter to the Times from Robert Chandler and others
12 November
Sirs, In this age of spin, Nigel Chapman's readiness to advertise the fact that the Russian service audience has almost halved (from 1.3 million to 750,000) during the last 3 years of his management is an example of honesty and openness that we should all cherish. Nevertheless, it would be more heartening still if he showed some awareness of the possibility that the decline of his audience might result from a decline in the quality of the service's output. The wish to make current affairs programmes acceptable in style and content on Russian FM stations may have backfired.
It is also possible that this loss of audience is partly due to the short waves cut of 2003 and the loss of the repeats which were the only way of enabling programmes to reach an audience spread across 11 time zones. His lack of awareness of Russian geographical reality (not to mention political reality) is astounding. There is no way of delivering ‘stronger journalism' ‘at times when it has most audience impact' except through the use of the ‘repeats' he speaks of so dismissively. He seems to regard the whole of Russia east of the Urals as an irrelevant appendage to Moscow and Petersburg.
It is equally extraordinary that he should refer to the programmes that are being lost as ‘light feature programmes with little analysis'. A high proportion of the signatories to the 7 November letter have themselves contributed to these programmes; they understand Russian, and unlike the Director of the World Service, know what the programmes are about. Their themes vary from the work of Doris Lessing to the closure of the British Council, from Rostropovich's work in Britain to the Archbishop of Canterbury's book about Dostoevsky, from the analysis of judgments made by the European Court of Human Rights with regard to incidents in Chechnya to a comparison of English and Russian children's playground songs. It is possible that the audience for the service might have increased rather than declined if the BBC had broadcast more, rather than less, of such programmes.
There is an urgent need for a public inquiry into all aspects of the World Service. The problems are not confined to the Russian service. In an attempt ‘to bring producers closer to their audiences', more and more language services are being moved from London to cities in the country concerned. The Urdu service, for example, may well be relocated to Pakistan, where it will obviously be all-but impossible for it to retain its editorial independence. The BBC has already, in 2007, agreed to obtain prior clearance from Pakistan's media regulatory authority for all contents programmes intended for broadcast on a local FM radio station. There are similar stories with regard to other countries.
Yours Sincerely,
Tony Cash (Producer Russian Service 1963-68)
Robert Chandler (translator of Russian literature, co-chair Pushkin Club)
Teresa Cherfas (television and radio producer)
Martin Dewhirst (Honorary Research Fellow, University of Glasgow)
Marina Katzarova (RAW in WAR - Reach All Women in WAR)
Diran Maghreblian (former Russian service producer)
Anna Pilkington (Lecturer, Russian Department, Queen Mary, University of London)
Franklin Reeve (Novelist, poet, scholar, Russian translator)
Andreas Schonle (Professor, Russian Department, Queen Mary, University of London)
Irina Shumovitch, (producer BBC Russian Service 1989-2003)
Debating the future of BBC’s Russian Service
From the editors of openDemocracy Russia:
The BBC World Service argues that it has lost 40% of its Russian listeners in recent years, although the budget for its Russian service is its second largest, at about £5 million a year.
The loss of listeners is partly due to the fact that following the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, when relations between Britain and Russia were at a low ebb, the World Service lost its access to FM transmitters in Moscow and St Petersburg. However, the BBC has also cut the number of hours it transmits on short wave, whose reception maybe be inferior, but does reach nationwide.
The World Service is proposing to extend its news and current-affairs coverage, and shift its emphasis to online provision, including increased English-language teaching. Its Russian-language website attracts about one million unique visitors a month, a figure that trebled during the Georgia crisis.
Critics of the proposals claim that the greater the misunderstanding between the cultures, the more important the traditionally broad intellectual offering becomes. To narrow the service to the provision of news, current-affairs and languages duplicates what other services provides.
We would like to hear what Russian listeners think. For this important debate is taking place against the background of a broader disquiet about the BBC's domestic programming in recent years. Many British viewers argue that the BBC has been forgetting its public-service remit, paying vast sums to celebrity hosts and duplicating the services of commercial broadcasters. Have Russian listeners been responding to a similar decline in the quality of provision, rather than to the quality of the signal? Is the decision to focus on news and current affairs sensible? On the other hand, maybe the shift of resources to online provision is justified?
We would welcome your input in this discussion
Letter to the Times 7 November 2008
Sir, The BBC World Service has announced that its Russian service broadcasts are being cut by 19 hours a week and that it will now drop all analytical and cultural features. A previous unfortunate decision, taken five years ago, was to reduce the hours of short-wave broadcasting, relying on the Russians themselves to rebroadcast BBC programmes on FM frequencies. The Russian service thus became largely dependent on the Russian authorities - whose co-operation, of course, can no longer be counted on. That decision seems to have been taken merely because short wave is considered old-fashioned, even though it is the only reliable means of signal delivery to the whole of Russia.
At a time when in Russia misunderstanding and mistrust of Britain has reached a height unprecedented since the end of the USSR this deliberate reduction in the role of the Russian service seems a perverse concession to those authorities in Russia who have been doing their best to curtail the activities of all British cultural institutions (the BBC and the British Council in particular). The Russian service had a fine record of producing long-format features of unique depth and diversity of opinion on matters of serious political and cultural concern. Expansion of internet services is no compensation for the loss of these features. The BBC World Service should be held to account by the press for its inexplicable actions - and everyone who realises that BBC World Service broadcasts are the best ambassadors we have for this country should make their views known.
Antony Beevor
Orlando Figes
Michael Frayn
Doris Lessing
David Manning, Former UK Ambassador to USA
Lucy Popescu, Director of English PEN's Writers in Prison Committee
Simon Sebag-Montefiore
Tom Stoppard
D. M. Thomas
Andrew Wood, British Ambassador to Moscow (1995-2000)
Roy Allison (Reader in International Relations, London School of Economics)
David Wedgwood Benn
Bill Bowring (Professor of Law at Birkbeck College, University of London; adviser on Human Rights and Law Reform in Russia for DfID, 1997-2003)
Felicity Cave MBE (Russian translator/interpreter)
Philip Cavendish (Senior Lecturer in Russian Literature and Film Studies, SSEES, UCL)
Robert Chandler (translator, co-chair Pushkin Club)
Simon Clark
David & Helen Constantine (editors of ‘Modern Poetry in Translation')
Elena Cook (Russian-English interpreter and translator) MBE
Sergei Cristo ( BBC radio journalist, 1994-2000)
John Crowfoot (Russian translator)
Martin Dewhirst (Honorary Research Fellow, University of Glasgow)
Natasha Dissanayake (Interpreter and Tourist guide)
Simon Dixon (Sir Bernard Pares Professor of Russian History, SSEES, UCL)
Pete Duncan (Head of Social Sciences Dept, SSEES, UCL)
Helen Dunmore (FRSL)
Leo Feigin (Record producer)
Jo Glanville (editor Index on Censorship)
Seth Graham (Lecturer in Russian, SSEES, UCL)
Jane Grayson ( Hon. Senior Lecturer, SSEES, UCL )
Constantine Gregory (actor)
Keith Hammond (Russian English Translator)
Professor Philip Hanson (Associate Fellow, Chatham House Russia and Eurasia Programme, The Royal Institute of International Affairs
Jonathan Heawood (Director English PEN)
Mrs Jane Henderson ( Senior Lecturer in the Laws of Eastern Europe, King's College London School of Law.)
Jeremy Hicks (Head of Russian Dept, Queen Mary, University of London
Geoffrey Hosking (Emeritus Professor of Russian History, University College London)
John Kampfner (Chief Executive, Index on Censorship)
Lydia Kotsishevsky MD , Columbia University Medical Center, New York City, USA
Kazimir Krivko MDT, Excelldent Laboratory INC, Scarsdale, NY, USA
Alena Ledeneva (Professor of Politics and Society at UCL)
Anatol Lieven (Professor, King's College London)
Dominic Lieven (Professor LSE)
Margot Light ( Emeritus Professor of International Relations, LSE)
Christopher MacLehose (Publisher)
Olga Makarova (Teaching and Research Fellow, Queen Mary University of London
Professor Silvana Malle (University of Verona - and former head of the OECD Economics Department Division)
Gerard McBurney (composer, broadcaster, specialist in Russian and Soviet music)
Richard McKane (translator from Russian, co-chair Pushkin Club)
Professor Arnold and Doctor Svetlana McMillin (SSEES, UCL)
Diran Meghreblian (former current affairs editor of BBC Russian Service)
Catherine Merridale (Professor of History, Queen Mary, University of London)
James Nixey (Manager and Research Fellow, Russia and Eurasia Programme, The Royal Institute of International Affairs
Chatham House)
Anna Pilkington (Lecturer, Russian Department, Queen Mary, University of London)
Donald Rayfield (Emeritus Professor of Russian and Georgian, Queen Mary, University of London)
Susan Richards (Editor OpenDemocracy Russia)
John Russell (Professor of Russian and Security Studies, Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford)
Daniel Salbstein (Chairman of The Great Britain-Russia Society)
Andreas Schonle, (Professor of Russian, Queen Mary, University of London)
Irina Shumovitch, (producer BBC Russian Service 1989-2003)
Philip Spender ( Chair, Stephen Spender Memorial Trust)
Dr Arch Tait (translator from Russian)
Peter Tegel (co-chair Pushkin Club)
William Tompson (economist, former Professor of Political Economy, Birkbeck College, University of London)
Open letter from the BBC Director of World Service to Members of GB-Russia Society
I am writing this letter because it has come to our attention that some members of the GB-Russia Society have signed a letter for publication in a British national newspaper.
We have been shown a draft copy of the letter and are dismayed at the misleading claims made about our proposals to strengthen the BBC Russian Service output.
Although you may not be a signatory, we feel it is important that all members of this respected society have the opportunity to hear first-hand exactly what the BBC World Service is proposing to strengthen the BBC Russian Service.
Like you, we want to see a Russian Service which has as much impact with audiences as we can achieve, and uses all the most effective means of reaching them, including a mix of radio and new media. From the audience figures, we know we have to put considerably more resources into bbcrussian.com as audiences for it in Russia are growing rapidly and at a much faster pace than radio.
I will first deal with the claims in the letter before outlining our proposals and the reasons why we are taking these decisions.
Firstly, the BBC Russian Service broadcasts are not being cut by 22 hours a week, as claimed in the letter. It's important to understand that we are adding new programmes to the schedule as well as dropping some titles. In fact, the net loss is 19 hours a week, and many of these are repeats.
It is important to see this number in context. It is not simply a matter of hours added or reduced.
We are proposing to close off-peak news bulletins specifically designed for FM broadcasting partners, which are obsolete because we no longer have any FM partners.
We are closing a number of feature programmes. These are not news and current affairs programming and are not regularly bringing significant amounts of analysis to the output.
Each of these feature programmes tends to be repeated many times in a week. The loss of these repeats makes up a significant proportion of reduced hours of output on the Russian Service.
However, we are extending our high quality news and current affairs at key times of the day. This is a very significant addition to the schedule at a time when audiences will listen to us. It also plays to our core strengths: to provide unbiased news and information to Russian audiences when availability from other broadcast sources in Russia is becoming much more limited.
So, far from dropping analytical programmes, as claimed, we are increasing our investment to produce more.
The letter claims we are cutting cultural output. In fact we are putting many of the elements of our cultural output into extended editions of our peak time flagship programmes. We are also increasing the current affairs reporting of British cultural and social affairs.
The whole strategy is based on trying to increase the "unique depth and diversity of opinion on matters of serious political and cultural concern", as the letter demands, by putting these important elements in parts of the schedule when most Russians are able to hear it; and in ways they have shown they wish to receive it.
The letter says the BBC has reduced short wave. In recent times the BBC has ensured that all its programmes in Russian are transmitted on shortwave. We have kept faith with shortwave despite clear evidence that usage is declining among audiences and is rapidly becoming a miniscule part of the Russian media landscape. But all our shortwave signals are affected by the current cycle of sunspot activity that has diminished the power of our broadcasts over the last 18 months or so and will do so for another year at least. This natural phenomenon is outside our control. We are negotiating to obtain extra and stronger frequencies.
The BBC is not "largely dependent on the Russian authorities", as stated in the letter. The majority of the BBC Russian Service's audience comes through a mixture of short wave and online which has no interference from the Russian government. Some commentators have described this as the only true unrestricted medium in Russia. We supplement this with three medium wave relays. We have no FM partners.
Here is a detailed outline of what we plan across radio and new media in Russian.
The major change is a greater investment in bbcrussian.com as the key method for delivery of all our content and the strengthening of some existing areas such as news, video and interactivity on the site.
Radio will also change, with our key news and current affairs blocks at peak audience listening times. Utro and Vecher na BBC will become longer and a new weekend edition of Vecher will be introduced. Other key programmes, such as, BBSeva, Vam Slovo and Ranniy Chas will remain.
The key elements of the new offer will be:
Radio
- A re-focusing of the BBC Russian Service's radio resources on peak audience listening times, with more investment in flagship news and current affairs programmes
- - Key daily radio programmes on short and medium wave will be expanded to make up a simpler schedule - focused on peak morning and evening drive time audiences - which will be easier for audiences to find.
- - The flagship morning weekday news and current affairs programme Utro na BBC will be increased by one hour to three and a half hours each day.
- - The existing half hour programme focusing on the FSU, Ranniy Chas, will remain and reporting on FSU for all outlets will be strengthened.
- - The afternoon weekday drive time news and current affairs sequence Vecher na BBC - which includes the hour long BBSeva hosted by Seva Novgorodsev - will be increased by one hour to four hours each day.
- Filling a gap in the current radio schedules at weekends by increasing the availability of our in-depth news and current affairs output
- - New weekend editions of Vecher na BBC will be launched, on both Saturday and Sunday, to take the place of current short updates. They will focus on current affairs, analysis, and culture and will incorporate many of the themes and issues currently covered by longer format programmes.
- Strengthening our newsgathering
- We intend to develop extra newsgathering resources in Russia, resulting in increased reporting and analysis of Russian affairs in the key flagship radio programmes. We also intend to increase the current affairs reporting of British, cultural and social affairs, as well as reporting on the FSU, for all programmes and online.
Online
In Russia bbcrussian.com is having a significant impact, where it is easier to access than BBC radio services and where demand is growing. In August, at the height of the conflict between Russia and Georgia, the number of monthly users increased dramatically to nearly three million.
The audience is also accessing other platforms online - listening to audio doubled in August; demand for video jumped sixfold to nearly 2,300,000 views. Even page impressions to our mobile services, in which we are currently working without a partner, more than doubled.
We are therefore investing in strengthening bbcrussian.com through:
- Launching a new online rolling news service, updated 24/7, on bbcrussian.com - the Russian market has shown a considerable appetite for this type of content.
- Increasing the number of high quality video reports, underpinned with original journalism from Russia, to be updated 24/7.
- Strengthening resources for bbcrussian.com during the morning peak periods.
- Increasing the resources for interactivity.
- Boosting the Learn English part of bbcrussian.com
To pay for these improvements we will have to reprioritise resources from within the current Russian Service budget. This means there will be the changes to other parts of the radio outlined in the first part of my letter.
These improvements are self-funded from within the Russian Service which will continue to have the second highest level of funding and radio output after the Arabic Service.
We believe that a fuller multimedia news offer for audiences will strengthen the impact of the BBC's second biggest non-English language service, and that these changes will help the BBC Russian Service become the most trusted and influential international news provider in Russia, serving audiences in the global Russian-speaking community, across all borders and platforms. It will continue to be a distinctive public service which sits squarely within BBC World Service's core mission.
I hope this fuller account of our plans allays your concerns. If you require further details or wish to comment on these changes, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Nigel Chapman CMG
Director, BBC World Service
Letter from Professor Donald Rayfield to the Director of the BBC World Service
9 November 2008
Dear Mr Chapman,
Your response to the letter in the Times of 7 November on the BBC Russian service is so out of kilter with the realities of BBC broadcasting to Russia and with the points made by all those who signed that letter (and who know what they are talking about), that I can only conclude that the director of the World Service has only the faintest idea of what the Russian service does and what Russian listeners respond to, and is being badly briefed by those in the BBC who speak Russian and ought to know. The letter to The Times was signed by a number of Russian specialists who know Russia very well and know what the response is in Russia to the BBC's Russian programming. You should be less dismissive of their views. I will take your points in the order you make them:
1) The decline of 40% in the number of listeners is only partly due to the loss of FM transmission in Moscow and St Petersburg or to the drop in the number of shortwave receivers, so popular in Soviet times. It should have struck you that a) it is important who, as well as how numerous, your listeners are and b) that the decline may be ascribed to the BBC's increasing its news output to the exclusion of more diverse programmes and thus losing its distinctive nature as a broadcaster by resembling more and more its competitors, e.g. Radio Free Europe. The question of who your listeners are is particularly important (as it is for Radio 3 in the UK), since these tend to be university-educated people in the humanities, liberal thinkers, persons in the media, whose favourable impressions of British broadcasting and culture make an impact on decision makers, present and future, in Russia.
2) Your idea of enhancing daily flagship news and current affairs programming is, in fact, a narrowing of focus, competing with RFE and with the few independent radio stations in Russia, as as Ekho Moskvy. You are not strengthening the provision of culture by shutting down such long-running programmes as Angliiskii klub and Knizhnaya polka, which have often achieved the same level as The Verb on Radio 3 or of the book programmes on Radio 4. More important, these programmes (on which I myself, and other signatories, have often taken part over the past thirty years) demonstrate to Russian listeners that there are British historians, writers, thinkers, journalists who can take part in lively discussions in Russian with partners in a studio in Moscow or St Petersburg and make a programme which is far more creative, adventurous and free-thinking than a Russian listener will get from his domestic media or from any other foreign broadcaster (RFE was the BBC?s only effective rival until it closed its Munich office and decided, as you seem to be deciding now, to be a news and news analysis broadcaster only). I get a lot of feedback from Russian listeners, on internet sites such as polit.ru as well as privately, from all over the country, and the BBC is prized for discussing books, topics of mutual interest, such as language acquisition or sensitive issues (such as recently the closeness of Georgian-Russian cultural contacts), topics not broached by other broadcasters, and which you have now been misled into believing to be ‘soft' features.
3) There are 32 million internet users in Russia, but they are overwhelming concentrated in cities of a million or more. That leaves another 60 million adults, many of them educated and interested in more than light entertainment and news, with no internet access.
4) What you call ‘stronger journalism' just means a 24-hour loop of ‘rolling news service': it doesn't mean more outspoken, or more profound journalism. Free thinking and specialist knowledge comes - and I'm sorry if I sound conceited - from such sources as guests invited on to your cultural programmes who are not employees of the BBC, who are paid little more than their bus fare to take part, and are therefore uninhibited about saying what they think and what they know.
5) While the Russian service remains a major player within the World service, the fact that you gloss over is that it is being reduced. You are shedding staff, rehiring only those who can be used for ‘news' programmes and proposing not to re-employ those who have made the most stimulating cultural programmes. You have at the moment in the Russian service a number of producers who are respected as cultural figures in Russia in a way that no newsreader is, and if you lose them, you will lose even more listeners.
Your editorial independence will always be compromised by the knowledge that the Russian authorities can block, jam or remove from the transmitters any broadcaster whose news contradicts their views: there is little you can do about that, except to lobby the Foreign Office to take what tit-for-tat counter-measures it can against such Russian broadcasters as Russia Today. The trust and influence you enjoy from your listeners in Russia will be sharply diminished once you come to resemble every other broadcaster and expunge your most creative programming for the sake of repetitive news transmission.
It is particularly indicative of the short sightedness of present policies that your Ranii chas programme for Armenia, Georgia and Kazakhstan is now going to be broadcast not from London, but from Moscow. Do you really think that a Georgian listener is going to listen to a BBC Russian-language broadcast emanating from Moscow instead of London?
I very much hope (and will do what I can to urge) that a high-level enquiry will be set up to ensure that the BBC Russian service is developed on the right lines, instead of being turned into the homogeneous babble of news indistinguishable from half a dozen others. Given the present state of political relations between the two governments it is more important than ever that ‘nation speaks unto nation', and a nation does that by speaking of its own culture and interacting with its listeners' culture."
Michael Church, a freelance who writes for the Independent, comments:
"They did almost ALL the things you excoriate now, three years ago, with regard to the cultural World Service programmes they axed, to create cash for their unwanted 24-hour Arabic news service. They are now doing the same with regard to their broadcasts to Russia and the countries surrounding it."
If you would like to make a coherent critique of this policy of getting rid of everything that characterizes the BBC - fearlessly independent cultural and political discussion - and becoming yet another continuous news provider, constantly fearful of causing offence, more power to your elbow, and anything I can contribute, I shall.
Yours sincerely,
Donald Rayfield
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