UPDATE: August 16th 2020. The programme file was updated with a better quality copy of the programme. Things are very cold in Holland, which is essential for the Eleven Cities Skating Tour in Friesland. We learn about changes at Radio Prague. The programme also contains an interesting interview at the start of Radio Kudirat. This was a Nigerian clandestine radio station which operated via the World Radio Network in London. Articles have appeared subsequently explaining that the station was set up after the Nigerian military annulled the election in June 1993. We also interview the boss of Talk Radio, a shortlived station on 1395 kHz that operated out of the Radio Netherlands building. We talk to Julian Isherwood in Copenhagen to find why Danish Radio has stopped broadcasting in English.

In the weekend on February 1985, we misued the new Flevoland shortwave transmitter site by connecting ham radio gear to the giant Shortwave antennas outside the building in Zeewolde. This year, 2013, the same thing is happening on 26/27th January. But this time the shortwave broacast transmitters are no longer active. The site belongs now to the Netherlands Ministry of Defence. The ham station we ran in 1985 had the callsign PA6FLD.

This programme features the start of WRMI from Miami Florida, a commercial station aimed at Cuba and run by entrepreneur Jeff White. We also profile broadcasting in Fiji in the Pacific.

A news edition of the Media Network programme. This programme kicks off with a super-fast Morse test. The Goddess of Democracy ship leaves France for the coast of China and Lithuania proclaims its regained independence. Ironically, the broadcast came via transmitters in Russia. Richard Ginbey sends in news about Radio Namibia where he was working. 2MInternational launches, as the first private TV channel in North Africa. Thieves break into HCJB's transmitter site in Pifo and steal equipment. Venzuealan National Radio plans programmes in other languages. Radio Nacional de Venezuela also has plans for expansion. Julian Clover (now editor of Broadband TV News) compiled an item on Incremental Radio. Radio Romania International is the new name for Radio Bucharest. New programmes are being broadcast from Southern Iran beamed into South Asia. Big ionospheric storms hit shortwave reception.

We had no idea that the people behind the station we reported on in this programme would later be responsible for a Sarin gas attack in Tokyo. But that was three years later. Spanish Foreign Radio is working on a relay station in Costa Rica. Radio Miami has done a deal with a station in Honduras. The Megaphone Newsreel marches across the continent. Radio Vilnius is worried about its relay in Moldova. Baltic Radio International is going to make money, so Paul Rusling claims. AWR Europe's World DX News signs off. Radio Norway plans special transmissions for Burma. Radio St Helena may return to the airwaves. Paul Ballster has found a new station in Wimbeldon. Radio Free Asia cancels a visit to Beijing.

This programme included a visit to the radio station across the Central Station in Amsterdam. It was the idea of Ronald Jan Heijn, the former international hockey player who decided to become a spritual entrepreneur. Son of Gerrit Jan Heijn, he set up a centre called Oibibio. By the time we visited, they were on the verge of financial collapse. The programme also looks at a financial crisis within the BBC Internet department, which has overspent its 1998 budget already.

Radio Prague returns as the country of Czechoslovakia ceases to exist. Jim Cutler goes mad about our phone number. Radio Sweden changes its output. Changes are afoot at Radio Luxembourg, with the ending of English broadcasts. Wolfgang Schultz reports from Hamburg. Radio Monique is revived on Euronet via SkySports. Euronews is launched from Lyon. Dutch public broadcasters scorn the channel. We remember LM Radio out of Mozambique. Victor Goonetilleke remembers hearing it. Moldova is testing, as so is Radio Australia.

Found a whole batch of programmes that are just over 20 years old, from an era when international broadcasting was grappeling with the arrival of satellite television, but had not heard of the Internet. In January 2013, the structure and functioning of US International Broadcasting in again under discussion...just like back in 1992 when Radio Free Asia was first suggested. No progress for decades it would seem. The budget for the radio broadcasts into China were similar then to the budget for Russia Today today. Radio Netherlands was expanding its output. Italy approves 500 local FM stations. We look at slow changes in the media in South Africa, despite the change of government. Radio RSA is no more - changing its name to Channel Africa. The ICF-SW33 is coming from Sony. Marcel Rommerts reports on the new High Adventure Ministry's station on Palau during his trip to Asia.

This is a really old edition of Media Network, from November 1986 when I visited what was then called Stad Radio Amsterdam. Since then, I don't believe Amsterdam has really been the success story of local public broadcasting. Stations in Rotterdam and Eindhoven sound a lot closer to the people than AT5. And why they put Radio Noord Holland out in an industrial park remains a mystery to me (in the picture). Radio stations need to be seen operating as well as heard. Look at the success of campaigns like the Glass House or the Radio 2 cafe in Holland. Out of site means definitely out of mind. And these days it means out of business.

A radio Christmas spent in the Media Network studio way back in 1996. Sounds like we were having fun! I look back on this period as perhaps one of the golden years for Dutch external broadcasting, producing a range of documentary productions in English and Spanish and recording great concerts, both classical and jazz. This programme focussed on answering listeners letters on subjects like satellite television in Australia (DW was organising a bouquet of signals) and the major changes to the commercial radio scene in New Zealand. The auction of FM frequencies in the Netherlands and shortwave stations that sold radios were also topics for discussions. RBI archives have, for the most part, been destroyed. Swiss shortwave listeners were quizzed on their listening habits. The 410 ft tower formerly used by AFN has been dynamited out of existence. Capital Radio in South Africa is in trouble.