freedom. For example, a service's contributions to furthering U.S. strategic interests was scored on the basis of inputs received from a variety of sources, including the White House, the National Security Council, the State Department, and applicable congressional Committees. For the impact ratings, the Board focused on audience size and composition as key performance measures. The Board also evaluated other data, such as the language service's program quality, operating budget, broadcast hours, signal strength, and affiliate stations, to identify approaches for increasing listening rates in selected countries. Audience data were based on research conducted by the International Broadcasting Bureau's Office of Audience Research and the InterMedia Survey Institute, which provided data on both audience size and elite listening rates. Appendix III contains further details on the criteria and related processes used to support the Board's language service review process. The Board used the language service evaluation criteria to develop priority/impact ratings for 69 of the Board's 84 language services.16 As shown in table 1, the Board used these ratings to develop a matrix that identified higher priority/higher impact services, higher priority/lower impact services, lower priority/higher impact services, and lower priority/lower impact services. The Board intends to use this information to strategically reallocate approximately $4.5 million in language service funds from emerging democracies in Central and Eastern Europe to several African countries and selected countries in other regions. The review resulted in 21 language service reduction recommendations, 15 recommended service enhancements, and a call for the further review of seven low-performing and five duplicate language services. Note: The Board requested that we not list the specific languages in each quadrant due to the sensitive nature of this information. Source: Broadcasting Board of Governors. Language services rated as higher priority were concentrated in countries with a large potential listening audience; low press, political, and economic freedom; and high strategic interest to the United States. Higher and lower impact scores were determined on the basis of percentage weekly listening rates for both mass and elite audiences. Services with listening rates below 5 percent for mass listeners and 15 percent for elite listeners were rated as having lower impact. Services that ranked above this threshold were rated as having higher impact. Review of Program Content According to the Board, next year's language review will include an assessment of overlapping language services among the five U.S. broadcast entities. Board officials told us that the strategy of duplicating language services has been designed to allow U.S. international broadcast entities to achieve their respective missions by offering different program content in the same language. Nonetheless, the Board said in a written evaluation of this year's language service review that it is essential that the Board revisit the respective roles of the broadcasting services in light of evolving foreign policy and geopolitical and budget realities in the new century. The Board intends to use the language service review next year to look at program duplication between the Voice of America and surrogate language services, such as broadcasts to countries of the former Soviet Union, and to determine whether this overlap effectively serves U.S. interests on a country-by-country basis. Figure 3 shows those languages where both the Voice of America and a surrogate service broadcast in the same language. Review of Duplicate While the Board intends to review the issue of program content duplication 700 bureau staff and freelance journalists covering its broadcast area. The Voice of America has a combined staff of about 150 in the same region. In addition to the issue of overlap, broadcasting officials noted that news-gathering resources are not shared across broadcast entities. For example, one Voice of America language Division Director noted that news feeds from Voice of America overseas bureaus are not shared with Radio Free Asia and that Radio Free Asia news feeds are not shared with the Voice of America. The Division Director said "They do their work, and we do ours." A Radio/TV Marti employee noted that neither the Voice of America nor Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty share relevant news items of interest to Radio/TV Marti listeners. As an example, news from Russia is not directly available to the station, because Radio/TV Marti does not have overseas bureaus or freelance journalists. 17 We reported on a similar issue in our 1996 report on budget reduction options for the U.S. Information Agency." In our report, we noted areas where elimination of existing overlap could yield management improvements and cost reductions. One area we highlighted was the potential for further consolidation of overseas news bureaus and other broadcasting assets. Our report cited the overlap in news-gathering resources deployed by the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Moscow as an example of a potential area for consolidation. Table 2 provides details on the number of bureaus, bureau staff, and freelance journalists deployed by each broadcast entity along with related fiscal year 2000 funding data. 17 U.S. Information Agency: Options for Addressing Possible Budget Reductions. The need to manage overseas resources effectively is heightened by the fact that several broadcasting officials commented they do not have adequate news-gathering resources and that product quality has suffered as a result. For example, a Radio/TV Marti official told us that a lack of resources has prevented the station from sending journalists to domestic locations outside of the Miami area and overseas to report on news stories of interest to the Cuban people. A Radio Free Asia language Director noted that her service has only $500 a month to pay for reports from freelance journalists that cost $50 to $100 per report. She noted that this level of funding is not sufficient to produce original and up-to-date programming. Radio Free Asia officials have since told us that freelance budgets have been adjusted to fully fund all language services' projected requirements for the remainder of fiscal year 2000. Strategic Planning and The Board has not yet developed a strategic planning and performance management system that provides a high level of assurance that resources are being used in the most effective manner possible. The key components of this system are Results Act planning, the annual language service review, and the program reviews of individual language services. The Board's fiscal year 2001 Results Act performance plan is deficient because of missing or imprecise performance goals and indicators and a lack of key |