MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Vasily Kononenko.) A recent public opinion poll shows that foreign radio voices broadcasting to Russia have lost most of their audiences.
Radio Liberty is the only one keeping afloat, reports Comcon-2 on the results of a June radio monitoring survey. It is 28th on the list of popular radio stations in Moscow (1.2% of the audience).
The other radio stations are quickly approaching zero: The BBC Russian Service is only 33rd (0.5%) and the Voice of America, 36th (0.4%).
When the Iron Curtain was lifted, the foreign radio voices failed to find a new niche in conditions of harsh competition with the Russian media.
The simplest explanation is technical: Foreign radio stations mostly broadcast not in the popular FM and VHF bands, which have been divided between Russian radio stations, but in the MF band.
But there are also other reasons. In particular, Russia is fighting terrorism now, and the audiences here are offended by the choice of words by Western radio stations and their allegedly neutral attitude to crimes of terrorism. In particular, they described the terrorists who took hostage children and adults in a Beslan school in September 2004 as "rebels."
The radio voices have ceased to be objective sources of information, and the catastrophic loss of their audiences is the inevitable result.
