This page intentionally left blank 1 Broadcasting Board of Governors FY 2014 Budget Request Executive Summary The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) requests FY 2014 funding of $731.08 million to support United States national interests through its mission to inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy. In accordance with the International Broadcasting Act of 1994 (as amended), the BBG manages and oversees all U.S. civilian international broadcasting, including the Voice of America (VOA), the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB), and grantee organizations Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Inc. (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia (RFA), and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc. (MBN). It also oversees the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB). The BBG distributes programming in 61 languages to more than 100 countries via radio (shortwave, medium wave, FM), terrestrial and satellite TV, the Internet, mobile devices, and social media. With its global transmission and digital networks, the BBG reaches a worldwide weekly audience of more than 175 million people. U.S. international broadcasting is among the most cost-effective initiatives within public diplomacy. Eighty percent of BBG language services cost less than $5 million per year to operate; some 60 percent cost less than $2 million per year. The BBG¶V mission aligns with a central tenet of the National Security Strategy of the United States, as articulated by President Obama: ³,QDOOWKDWZHGRZHZLOODGYRFDWHIRUDQGDGYDQFH the EDVLFULJKWVXSRQZKLFKRXU1DWLRQZDVIRXQGHG«'HPRFUDF\GRHVQRWPHUHO\UHSUHVHQW our better angels, it stands in opposition to aggression and injustice, and our support for universal rights is both fundamental to American leadership and a source of our VWUHQJWKLQWKHZRUOG´ The BBG upholds the inherent right of people everywhere to receive information through any media without restriction. BBG broadcasters are professional journalists committed to providing accurate, credible, and comprehensive news and information to audiences who lack access to the truth and are therefore susceptible to misinformation. BBG journalism is thus an antidote to censorship and extremist rhetoric, as well as a model of free media. By exemplifying free media (and expression) the BBG helps foster and sustain free, democratic societies. Those societies have proven to be more peaceful and stable and rarely threaten their neighbors or offer safe havens for terrorists. Nurturing them is thus a national security imperativeFRQVLVWHQWZLWKWKH3UHVLGHQW¶Vnational security policy. Freedom of information remains under threat around the globe and this underscores the ongoing relevance of the BBG mission. Freedom House notes that 2013 is the seventh consecutive year that declines in worldwide freedom have outpaced advances. Lack of media freedom has followed suit. In the strategically key Arabic-speaking countries of the Middle East, for instance, not a single country has a free media environment despite the availability of hundreds of satellite TV channels. BBG broadcasters also offer life-saving information during humanitarian emergencies. They develop technologies to overcome jamming and penetrate Internet firewalls. And when events dictate, they react quickly to crises with surges in broadcasting. 2 As vital as the BBG mission is, the challenges the Agency faces have never been greater. Global media continue to proliferate, from satellite TV to FM radio to the Internet to social networking to mobile devices. Many governments routinely deny BBG access to local TV and radio broadcasting facilities or airwaves, enact laws restricting content from foreign sources, and selectively jam our broadcasts and block our Internet sites. State-sponsored broadcasters from China, Russia, Iran, and other countries, which do not necessarily share U.S. values, are greatly expanding their international media initiatives with multi-billion budgets to drive global information flows. At the same time, non-state actors, most notably those who support violent extremism, continue to carry out aggressive campaigns of disinformation and propaganda ± in the Middle East, South Asia, and increasingly in North and Sub-Saharan Africa. 7KH %%*¶V 2012-2016 Strategic Plan, Impact through Innovation and Integration, embraces these challenges and charts a progressive course forward. Approved by the BBG Board in October 2011, the Plan has guided the difficult decisions required in an environment of fiscal constraint. The FY 2014 budget submission rests on and supports Agency strategy. The $JHQF\¶Vrobust research program drives BBG decision-making, from establishing strategy and priorities to tailoring programming and delivery methods to target audience preferences, and corresponding resource allocations. The research program produces an ongoing extensive body of market and audience data, which is presented throughout this budget document to help justify both proposed investments and reductions. Audiences are strong in countries and regions vital to U.S. national security, including Afghanistan, Burma, the FATA, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea, and Somalia, among many others. In most of these places and in many target countries, BBG broadcasters are not only market leaders in audience but also often set the news agenda. In addition, audiences almost uniformly give high marks to the news for trustworthiness and to information programs for contributing to a better understanding of American culture and policies. For 2012- WKH %%*¶V FRUH VWUDWHJLF JRDO LV WR EHFRPH WKH ZRUOG¶V OHDGLQJ LQWHUQDWLRQDO news agency focused on mission and impact ± i.e., to reach key audiences in support of free, open, democratic societies. The AJHQF\¶VSULQFLSDOSHUIRUPDQFHJRDOLV to reach 216 million in global weekly audience by 2016. As Agency strategy lays down, to be competitive in today¶VFRPSOH[PHGLDPDUNHWV, the BBG must innovate as never before. To have the resources and management structures to enable such innovation, the Agency must integrate its operations. The BBG has embarked on a program of internal reform, both to improve management effectiveness and to save resources. Examples of reform include the integration of senior management of the International Broadcasting Bureau and the BBG into one team to achieve clearer chains of command and coordination; a common content management system, developed within RFE/RL, to facilitate sharing of text, audio, and video across the BBG broadcasters; and unprecedented news coordination and sharing to ensure that unique BBG-produced content is made available across the Agency on a daily basis from WKHZRUOG¶VKRWVSRWVDQGfor special events such as the 2012 Democratic and Republican National Conventions. 3 Budget Highlights 5HTXLUHG SURJUDPPDWLF DQG DGPLQLVWUDWLYH LQFUHDVHV DQG UHGXFWLRQV LQ WKH %%*¶V FY 2014 EXGJHWUHTXHVWUHIOHFWWKH$JHQF\¶VVWUDWHJLFYLVLRQDVZHOODVAdministration priorities. Select highlights of the budget request include: x The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) requests $731.08 million for FY 2014: $722.58 million for International Broadcasting Operations and $8.50 million for Broadcasting Capital Improvements. x The FY 2014 Budget establishes a Chief Executive Officer for international broadcasting to oversee the day-to-day operations of the Agency and remedy senior management challenges identified by BBG, the Office of the Inspector General, the GAO, the White House, and the Department of State. x The FY 2014 Budget evolves international broadcasts from shortwave to more effective and less expensive digital tools, such as satellite and Internet radio, mobile phone technologies, and Internet-based social media, to UHDFK WRGD\¶V WHFKQRORJLFDOO\ VDYY\ DXGLHQFHV Shortwave radio broadcasts will continue in regions that lack access to digital technologies, such as in Darfur, North Korea, and Tibet. x 7KH%%*¶V)< Budget request contains $13.9 million in program increases that counter extremism in Africa, engage new audiences in the Middle East and Burma, and bolster deteriorating and aging broadcast infrastructure. x The FY 2014 Budget cuts over $45.0 million by scaling back selected language services to reduce overlap, increase cooperation, and ensure that broadcasters will provide complementary content; streamlining and restructuring central news operations; realizing savings in information technology; reductions in less effective cross-border transmissions; and making other administrative and support reductions in ways that will not diminish the $JHQF\¶VDELOLW\WRH[HFXWHLWVPLVVLRQ. x The FY 2014 Budget request provides $12.5 million in Internet anti-censorship funding to continue a broad-based approach to the deployment of emerging technologies and partnerships with cutting-edge experts, developers and in-country networks. Improving Management and Efficiency The FY 2014 Budget will improve the management and efficiency of BBG operations through the creation of a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) position and through the continuing evolution from shortwave to digital technologies. This Budget establishes the position of a Chief Executive Officer who will be chosen by and report to the Board. The CEO will be empowered to provide day-to-day executive leadership for U.S. international broadcasting and will have management authority over the federal and 4 non-federal elements of U.S. international broadcasting. The Board will retain the critical role of setting the strategic direction of U.S. international broadcasting, as well as evaluating its journalistic