U.S. nonmilitary international broadcasters include the Voice of America,
Worldnet Television and Film Service, Radio/TV Marti, Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty, and Radio Free Asia.1 These broadcast entities
support 84 discrete "language services" such as Radio Free Asia's Mandarin
service to China and Radio/TV Marti's Spanish language broadcasts to
Cuba.2 While each broadcast entity has a unique mission, a central theme in
all U.S. international broadcasting is to provide underserved populations
with balanced news coverage in areas where a free and open press does not
exist or has not been firmly established. The open exchange of information
and ideas, in turn, is designed to serve the interests of the United States by
promoting international peace and stability.

Congress passed the United States International Broadcasting Act of 1994
(title III of P.L. 103-236) with the goal of reorganizing and consolidating U.S.
international broadcast efforts in light of the end of the Cold War and
administration efforts to meet deficit reduction targets. The act established
a bipartisan Broadcasting Board of Governors (the Board) to oversee and
coordinate the efforts of all nonmilitary international broadcasting.3 The
act also created an International Broadcasting Bureau to carry out all
nonmilitary broadcasting activity, with the exception of Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia, both of which report directly to
the Board as federally funded grantees.

In addition to these changes, the act also contains specific funding
limitations and cost-cutting expectations, including the following:

• The total amount of grants made by the Board for the operating costs of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was not to exceed $75 million for any fiscal year after fiscal year 1995.

• The Board was not to make any grant to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty unless Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's headquarters are in a location that ensures economy, operational effectiveness, and accountability to the Board.

• Duplication of language services and technical operations between Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the International Broadcasting Bureau (which includes the Voice of America) were to be reduced to a level deemed appropriate by the Board.

• The Board was to conduct an annual assessment of language services.1

Under the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998
(P.L. 105-277), the Board was removed from the U.S. Information Agency
and established as an independent federal entity on October 1, 1999. As an
independent entity, the Board now is fully responsible for developing a
strategic planning and performance management system that is responsive
to both the 1994 act and the Government Performance and Results Act of
1993 (P.L. 103-62).

As agreed with your office, this report examines whether the Board
(1) responded to the specific funding limitations and cost-cutting
expectations regarding Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's operations,
(2) implemented an annual language service review process, and (3)
instituted a strategic planning and performance management system. As
requested, we also provide information on U.S. international broadcasting
and the British Broadcasting Corporation (see app. IV). Details about our
scope and methodology are presented in appendix V.

Results in Brief

The Board met its mandates under the 1994 U.S. International Broadcasting Act to reduce Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's annual budget by lowering its budget from $208 million in fiscal year 1994 to approximately

4

Most U.S. broadcasts are delivered in the language of the target audience. As a result, U.S. international broadcasting is organized around language services that are sometimes duplicated across broadcast entities.

$71 million in fiscal year 1996. It did this by taking several actions including relocating its operation from Munich, Germany, to Prague, Czech Republic, and significantly reducing staff. The Board realized additional savings by eliminating several hundred hours of broadcast overlap between Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Voice of America; eliminating and modifying a limited number of language services; consolidating transmission operations under the International Broadcasting Bureau; and deploying digital sound recording and editing technology, which has increased Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's staff efficiency and effectiveness.

The Board completed a comprehensive language service review in January 2000 that sought to systematically evaluate U.S. international broadcast priorities and program impact. 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. According to the Board, it intends to continue to use the annual language service review process to strategically analyze broadcast priorities, program funding, and resource allocations. In addition, 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. Currently, the Board has not decided whether it will review the overlap of overseas news-gathering resources among U.S. broadcast entities.

The Board has not yet established an effective strategic planning and performance management system that incorporates Results Act planning, the annual language service review process, and the program reviews of individual language services conducted by the International Broadcasting Bureau (on behalf of the Voice of America and Radio/TV Marti) and the surrogate broadcasters. The Board's fiscal year 2001 performance plan is deficient because of missing or imprecise performance goals or indicators and a lack of key implementation strategies and related resource requirements that detail the key issues facing the Board. Finally, the Board has not established a standard program review approach, which would help ensure that consistent and meaningful measures of program quality are developed across broadcast entities. It has also not incorporated specific audience size and composition (that is, mass versus elite listeners) targets into the program review process, which would help ensure that

program reviews culminate in a written report that identifies the specific actions needed to achieve agreed-upon performance goals.

We make several recommendations in this report directed at improving the Board's strategic planning and performance management system. Specific recommendations address each of the three component parts of this system-Results Act planning, the annual language service review, and the program reviews of language services that individual broadcast entities conduct. The Board agreed with these recommendations and noted that implementing action has already begun.

Background

The Board is responsible for overseeing a complex broadcast environment which spans 5 broadcast entities with varying missions, 84 discrete language services, changing consumer habits and preferences, and a technology environment that presents constant new challenges and opportunities. The Board currently oversees a staff of almost 3,200 and a worldwide network of leased communication satellite services and 38 owned or leased transmission stations. The Board oversees the broadcast of almost 2,000 hours of original (not rebroadcasts) broadcast material each week. The Board estimates that the Voice of America's broadcasts alone reach a worldwide listening audience of 91 million people each week. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty broadcasts reach an estimated 16 million listeners each week. Radio Free Asia and Radio/TV Marti have difficulty obtaining reliable audience estimates due to the closed nature of target broadcast countries.5 These audiences are reached through a variety of means, including direct radio and television broadcasts from U.S.-owned or -leased transmitters, local rebroadcasters (known as affiliates) who carry U.S. international broadcasting content on their stations, and the Internet.

5 Worldnet has primarily been used for public diplomacy-related broadcasts, and the Board has not commissioned audience share analyses.

6 The fiscal year 2000 budget for international broadcasting represents, in inflation-adjusted terms, a reduction of approximately 33 percent since fiscal year 1994.

independent, nonprofit corporations and are funded by grants from the Board.

The Board's current organizational structure is illustrated in figure 1. While this figure shows a reporting relationship from the Voice of America, Worldnet, and Radio/TV Marti to the Director of the International Broadcasting Bureau, these broadcast entities have a direct reporting relationship with the Board regarding all programming issues. The Acting Director of the International Broadcasting Bureau told us that his organization provides consolidated technical and support services to client broadcasters; however, programming decisions are handled by the respective broadcast entities and the Board.