China Radio International: And Now, No News

There are basically two kinds of program formats carried by China Radio International (CRI) now: those with, and those without news and current affairs coverage. Regionally, you can (roughly) draw aline between East and West, with only the former still getting CRI news in regional languages.

They still do speak English

The mention of target areas does not imply that there may not be other target areas for certain languages, too. As for Esperanto, for example, I only listened to the broadcast to Europe, but Europe may  not be CRI Esperanto’s only target area.

This list is not at all exhaustive; there are many more CRI language services I haven’t recently listened to.

Language	Target areas	News
Vietnamese	Vietnam	Yes
Indonesian	Indonesia	yes
Malaysian	Malaysia	yes
Japanese	Japan	yes
Filipino	Philippines	yes
Khmer	Cambodia	yes
Bengali	Bengal	yes
Thai	Thailand	yes
Mongolian	Mongolia	yes
Urdu	Pakistan, India, Nepal	yes
Hausa	Niger, Nigeria	yes
Pashto	Afghanistan, Pakistan	yes
Esperanto	Europe	no
Romanian	Romania	no
Italian	Italy	no
Bulgarian	Bulgaria	no
Czech	Czech Republic	no
Polish	Poland	no
Serbian	Serbia & regional	no
Hungarian	Hungary & regional	no
German	Austria & regional	no

Programs without news / current affairs are usually filled up with music. Some language services without news add explanatory announcements to their music programs, but others run completely without spoken words.
Language services that may be considered global ones – Chinese, English, Russian, or Spanish, still have news in their programs, and maybe cultural programs, too, but CRI’s Portuguese service hasn’t.

Esperanto broadcasts a cultural program with lots of talk, but no news or current affairs either.

The mere-music programs may run without day-to-day updates. The genres vary, however. You get some revolutionary opera on frequencies that were used for Serb programs in the past, or rock and pop music on what was once the Czech service.
The replacement for the German service is particularly mean: typical “China restaurant” dining music.
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Related

Program reductions, Nov 25, 2019
CCTV, CRI, CPBS, March 30, 2018
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Useful links

Shortwave Info
Kiwi SDR
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Shortwave Logs: Nov 2 – Nov 12, 2021

Radio Poland provides Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusan and German listeners with news and press reviews about current affairs, on medium wave, 1386 kHz, mainly from 04:00 to 05:30 GMT and from 15:30 to 17:30 GMT. As there are no more transmitters on shortwave or medium wave available in Poland, these broadcasts are transmitted from a medium wave station in Lithuania. The Lithuanians also carry a Russian-language program for the Western areas of the Russian Federation, and a program by Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (Radio Svoboda), also in Russian and for the same target area.

Radio Polands English service can be found online.

Radio Poland QSL card from the 1980s

The shorter the days, the better these programs should be audible throughout central Europe, and possibly beyond.

Improving propagation with the start of a new solar cycle draws me to shortwave and AM radio again. A few logs of the past few days are listed underneath, received some 30 kilometers southeast of Bremen, NW Germany.

If the recorded stations don’t show, click “read more”.

Freq	B’caster	Lang	Ctry	Time	Date		Quality
(kHz)				GMT			S	I	O
1386	Radio Japan	Rus	LTU	17:30	2 Nov		3	4	3
1386	Radio Poland	Ger	LTU	17:00	2 Nov		4	4	3
3955	KBS World	Ger	G	20:00	4 Nov		4	5	4
4850	PBS Xinjiang	Kaz	TKS	02:00	5 Nov		3	5	3
4885	Clube do Para	Por	BRA	02:36	3 Nov		3	4	3
6040	RRI Romania	Ger	ROU	15:25	10 Nov		4	4	4
6130	PBS Tibet	Eng	TIB	17:31	6 Nov		4	5	4
6170	Voice of Korea	Ger	KRE	18:00	2 Nov		3	4	3
7265	Radio Japan	Jap	D	05:10	11 Nov		4	5	3
7390	New Zealand	Eng	NZL	12.59	8 Nov		3	4	3
7780	R: Argentina	Ger	USA	21:00	10 Nov		4	5	3
11725	New Zealand	Eng	NZL	12:57	8 Nov		4	5	4
11780	Radionacional	Por	BRA	01:45	3 Nov		3	5	3
12045	CPBS	Chi	CHN	10:00	5 Nov		4	5	4
15160	AWR	Mon*)	GUM	12:20	7 Nov		3	4	3

Countries as ITU codes:
Lithuania (LTU); Great Britain (G); Turkestan (TKS); Brazil (BRA); Romania (ROU); Tibet (TIB); North Korea (KRE); Germany (D); New Zealand (NZL); USA (USA); China (CHN); Guam (GUM)

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Notes
^*) Mon is a language spoken in Burma and in neighboring countries
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