BBC shuts Romanian service Aug 1

BBC World Service has decided to close down its Romanian language service. It is planned that Radio BBC Romania, which is broadcasting four hours a day an runs a companion website, will cease transmissions on 1 August 2008, after 68 years of uninterrupted broadcasting, Info-Prim Neo reports, citing a release from BBC. The change follows a review of BBC World Service's language service portfolio after its overall funding levels, for the three-year funding period between 2008/09 and 2010/11, were agreed with the UK Government in October 2007. This is the only language service closure planned in this budgetary year. The release says that the decision has been endorsed by the BBC Trust and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and it comes after consideration of audience scores, the changing media landscape in Romania and the declining impact of the service. Instead, BBC World Service's funding settlement gave increased resources for new projects, such as television services for BBC Arabic and BBC Persian. But it also imposed a tough savings target of around 3 per cent per annum to meet rising costs of existing services. Over the past decade, BBC World Service has made continuing efficiency savings of, on average, 2.7 per cent annually which accumulates to £46 million. The scale of the competition in radio and all media has intensified since Romania acceded to the EU in 2007. In addition, mergers have meant that several major FM network partner stations which previously carried BBC Romanian output no longer do so. These FM partnerships are critical in a country where direct listening to the BBC via shortwave is neither popular nor cost-effective. This has led to a significant drop in audience (currently under 3% of the local radio market in Romania), which could not be countered by the presence of the BBC's limited number of FM relays, the release adds. Broadcasts in Romanian for the Republic of Moldova will also cease, as the Moldovan side of the operation cannot be sustained without the infrastructure of BBC Romanian. Contacted by Info-Prim Neo, BBC Chisinau director Alexandru Cantar said he hasn't had any comment on the changes yet. The BBC's five local FM relays (four in Romania and one in the Republic of Moldova), which currently broadcast a mixture of Romanian and English programs, will broadcast English programs exclusively (plus Russian and Ukrainian in Moldova), subject to agreement with local regulators. The audience in the two countries will continue to be served by other BBC Global News services in English, such as BBC World Service radio, BBC World News television, and online through bbc.com/news. The closure will affect 46 staff (30 in Bucharest in Romania; four in Chisinau in Moldova and 12 in London) and is said to save £1.3 million per annum.