The presentation was almost cancelled, since the RCI website was off-line after the server hosting it (the server of our French-language public broadcaster Radio-Canada) crashed. Service on the RCI website was off and on throughout the day.

The mobile version is something a number of employees were calling for, even before last year’s 80% cut of RCI’s budget, and the elimination of shortwave radio broadcasting.

In her presentation to staff Parent said a mobile version had been a priority, to make up for the loss of shortwave. This version comes only weeks after RCI radically changed the appearance of the website to better highlight the material posted by the English, French, Spanish, Mandarin and Arabic language services.

Parent emphasized how well the new website was being received by staff and administrators in the national public broadcaster CBC/Radio-Canada, and also by senators in Ottawa.

Parent said she accompanied CBC/Radio-Canada president Hubert Lacroix to a senate committee presentation on May 1, where they presented the website, and Parent said numerous senators came up to the two after the meeting to congratulate them for their success with RCI.

We’ll have more on the senate testimony of Parent and Lacroix, as well as the questions and comments made by the senate committee members, in a future post.

You can read his comments here

We’ll have more details about this later.

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And don’t forget the petition to save our transmitter site in Sackville, New Brunswick tinyurl.com/sackvillepetition

Those of us who understand how important this lifeline to the world is to world communication are sick to our stomachs at the rapidity with which the broadcaster wants to make the transmitters disappear. Shortwave broadcasts of Radio Canada International ended on June 24, 2012. Other countries’ use of our transmitters will end on October 31.

But CBC/Radio-Canada has already started the process of dismantling unused transmitters, and will start taking down still functioning transmission lines very shortly.

Why are they in such a hurry?

CBC/Radio-Canada has never understood the importance of international broadcasting, and is betting that Canadians will ignore the fact that a web-only service has limited impact while shortwave radio can reach more than 800 million radio receivers around the world.

The short sightedness of administrators obsessed with web page clicks fails to take into account that shortwave not only transmits radio broadcasts, but has been used for teletype and data transmission. Recent experiments reveal that with free software, shortwave signals could transmit texts where the Internet is not available. A tool that once again would get past Internet blocking, natural disasters, and wars.

The transmitters are there, they don’t cost much to maintain. Why do we want to cut ourselves off from being able to communicate with the world? Who should be making these decisions?

Please contact Canada’s Heritage Minister James Moore james.moore@parl.gc.ca and tell him to stop CBC/Radio-Canada from dismantling our transmitters.

And please send us any suggestions you may have rciaction@yahoo.ca

Thanks!

UPDATE: October 23, 2012 – Five transmission lines have already been taken down! Two are in the process of being dismantled. By next week almost all of the 28 lines will be dismantled. Only two will remain temporarily for the Quebec Northern Service.

UPDATE: later on October 23, 2012 – U.S. listener Thomas Witherspoon has started a petition to stop the dismantling of Sackville. See the post on our website, the petition is here http://tinyurl.com/sackvillepetition

Thanks to Thomas at The SWLing Post for this link.

If you want to know what you can do to help us please check out rciaction.org/blog/what-you-can-do as well as our latest photo project here

Please join us in this new project: “RCI – WE WILL NOT ‘REST IN PEACE’ PHOTO PROJECT – RCI, RIP ? NON !

You have been so generous with your time, in reading, and commenting and supporting us. We are now into our fourth (!) week without radio broadcasting. We’re not happy about this. We don’t think you are. Please take a few minutes to read the details here about our project, and then send us your photo.

Many thanks!

It was an emotional day. All were professional, but clearly devoted to our international service and its tradition of 67 years of presenting Canada to the world.

For more information on how you can help us to restore radio at Radio Canada International and turn back the 80% budget cut please go here: http://rciaction.org/blog/what-you-can-do/

Last English Newscast – Radio Canada International – RCI

Last Chinese newscast – Radio Canada International – RCI

Last Arabic newscast – Radio Canada International – RCI

Last French Newscast – Radio Canada International – RCI

“El Castor Mensajero”

Last radio broadcast – Radio Canada International – RCI

With its shortwave towers in Sackville, New Brunswick, the CBC International Service (as it was called then) would provide Canadians and foreign listeners with news, information, and music from Canada. For more details and audio, please go to the archives of our national public radio and TV broadcaster CBC/Radio-Canada here.

On June 24, 2012, more than 67 years after the first broadcast, Radio Canada International broadcast its last radio programmes, and went to a a web-only Internet service.

For what you can do to restore radio to Radio Canada International please read: http://rciaction.org/blog/what-you-can-do/

And now, for four days we have no audio on our web-only non-radio website! What’s next?

What you can do: help us restore the budget of Radio Canada International which was cut by 80%, help us get back on shortwave radio, so that millions of listeners can be in touch with Canada once again. http://rciaction.org/blog/what-you-can-do/