US Illegal Broadcasts to Cuba: So Much Money for Such Small Audiences

The Mexican news agency Notimex reported that the US plans a slight reduction in funding for Radio and TV Marti that broadcast illegal transmissions to Cuba and are hardly watched or heard by anyone in Cuba.

It seems like the crisis is even affecting these two ill-named broadcasters, whose budgets will be reduced from US$ 34.8 million a year to 32.4 million.

According to the Miami Herald, the cut comes as part of large reductions to the federal budget. The article also points out that the new objective of both broadcasters is to produce “shorter, more frequent TV news segments and an all-news radio format,” to try to attract audiences to
programming that receives too much money and has very small audiences.

Critics based in the United States say that very few of the 11.2 million Cubans who live on the island listen to Radio Marti or watch TV Marti.

Less than 1 percent of the 1,200 Cubans who were interviewed by phone had heard Radio Marti during the week before the survey, according to a study published by the Government Accountability Office.

Barely two weeks ago, Cuban Ambassador to the United Nations Abelardo Moreno denounced the illegal broadcasts to the UN Information Committee.

Moreno said that both stations transmit 1,955 hours of radio and television each week through 31 different frequencies (short and medium wave, FM and TV) of programming that has a profound lack of “objectivity and balanced reports.”