London-based World Radio Network appears to have ended its relays of the Voice of Korea, North Korea’s international shortwave radio service.
The broadcasts appeared in May and were being recorded by WRN from Voice of Korea’s daily English-language shortwave broadcasts. Voice of Korea puts out a daily hour-long program in English each day and it’s relayed several times to listeners around the globe.
The shortwave signal meant sometimes poor audio quality, but the WRN website was the only place on the Internet offering the program on-demand. Voice of Korea’s own website has news and music clips but not the entire broadcast.
At the time, WRN said it had started the service independently of Voice of Korea and stood ready to cease the service should it receive an objection from Pyongyang.
WRN hasn’t responded to a request for comment on the ending of the broadcast, although it appears unlikely the service would attract complaints from North Korea. By their nature, international broadcasters are established to send programs as widely as possible and the WRN relay would help accomplish that.
All that’s left on the WRN home page now is an error message, with no explanation of what happened.
For listeners who want to hear the daily broadcast, the only option left is shortwave radio. The current Voice of Korea schedule can be found in the resources section on this website.
Voice of Korea on WRN’s website has now resume via very loud and clear satellite signal.