BBC World Service News

Dear WCPE listener,

Sadly, the information you have heard is indeed true. After September 30, 2002, WCPE will no longer have permission to broadcast BBC World Service News.

In 1978, we initiated the concept of re-broadcasting BBC newscasts in the United States. You may recall in the early years that the newscasts were rebroadcast from the BBC's short wave transmissions with variable audio quality. Later, WCPE was granted exceptional permission to rebroadcast BBC newscasts without cost from a special satellite. Our 25 year association with BBC has been rewarding to our listeners and we regret that it must come to an end. This change is not by our choice.

The BBC's mission and their programming delivery systems began to change when they stopped their short wave service to the Americas entirely and offered news streaming on the internet. These newscasts are now available in online audio streams at this web address: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/default.stm

In the past several years, BBC has been gravitating toward granting exclusive United States rebroadcast rights to Public Radio International. We don't want to spend huge amounts of listener donations each year to pay PRI for network affiliation and programming. We'd rather spend that money on making the classical music programming even better.

WCPE is has a growing number of radio station affiliates around the nation which relay all of our programming, especially at night. PRI has no provision to allow re-broadcasting from WCPE to other stations, thus they and the BBC in London told us we must stop at the end of September. We have no other choice but to do as they say.

Entire BBC news hours are now heard on other Public Radio Stations, including our friends at WUNC, 91.5-FM, Chapel Hill. They broadcast BBC from 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM weekdays, and every night between Midnight and 5:00 AM.

BBC policy has changed. Radio is changing toward more channels available and more specialization in formats. WCPE has chosen to specialize in what we do best: Great Classical Music. WCPE will soon able to present an additional hour of music every day because we'll no longer interrupt programming ten times a daily for a six minute newscast.

The BBC news you desire is still available to you from several other sources including direct XM Satellite. I hope you'll locate the other sources I suggested to satisfy your needs for the unique perspective of BBC reporting. I trust that when you require Great Classical Music, you'll continue to tune to WCPE for our outstanding specialty.

Sincerely,
Dick Storck
WCPE Program Director
programs@wcpe.org