History
On April 30, 1994, President Clinton signed the International Broadcasting Act (Public Law 103-236). The legislation established the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) within the United States Information Agency (USIA), and created a Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) with oversight authority over all non-military U.S. government international broadcasting.
The Voice of America, the oldest and best-known organization within the BBG, was the first broadcast news organization to offer continuously updated programming on the Internet.
When USIA was disbanded in October 1999, the IBB and BBG were established as independent federal government entities, with the IBB as an administrative vehicle under the BBG containing VOA, Radio and TV MartÃ, the Office of Engineering and Technical Services, and a number of support services.
Other international broadcasting services supervised by the BBG are constituted as private corporations and are not part of the IBB.
These include:
- Radio Sawa and Al Hurra television (Arabic),
- Radio Farda (Persian to Iran),
- Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)
- Radio Free Asia (RFA).
Currently, the VOA and the IBB continue to operate shortwave radio transmitters and antenna farms at one site in the United States, located near Greenville, North Carolina.
Read more about this topic: International Broadcasting Bureau
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