[HCDX] WRTH 2001a disappointment

["Bob Padula" <bobpadula@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

WORLD RADIO TV HANDBOOK. I am sorry to say that in my opinion as a
professional broadcasting engineer and techical wroter, there are many
problems with the 2001 edition, which is quite disappointing, concerning the
promises made by the WRTH people after the 1999 and 2000 fiascos. The
National Radio
entries for many Asian countries are identical to the dreadfully incorrect
data published in 2000, and it is obvious that no updating at all has been
made for many other countries.

The Vietnamese Home Service SW listings are a farce: during 2000, there has
been a lot of very good information made available in the public domain for
Vietnamese SW broadcasting, including the extensive research I did when I
visited the region in June. Other experienced monitors had also made
available very good and up-to-date information, but WRTH has chosen to
ignore all of this, and persist in publishing wrong, outdated, and
misleading details.

The Indonesian list is identical to 2000, and is nothing like the actual
situation which exists!

The Australian MW and FM data is very old and doesn't appear to have been
amended.

The International Section has omitted the Voice of Indonesia schedule
entirely, and the Malaysia entries for Sabah and Sarawak are generally
fictitious. About half of the International Schedules are totally
irrelevant, being old "undated" listings, even though many of these B-00
timetables were available during September! The Papua New Guinea Listings
are a farce.

I will not spend any more time discussing this thing, except to say that if
the WRTH people can't afford to set up meaningful editorial contracts with
experts and arrange to remunerate them properly, then it should close down.
It is becoming the laughing stock of the broadcasting community, and there
has also been a price increase of some 10%.

Frankly, the product is becoming scandalous, even though there is a stated
claim that it is "up-to-date" !!!

It is not as though this product is made available free, where we can
tolerate mistakes and omissions. This is a fully commercial title,
attracting substantial advertising revenue; it is quite expensive, yet
people buy in almost total ignorance of the sub-standard content.

Some months ago, I was invited by WRTH to compile the Australian listings,
but my editorial research fee was considered "too high", where I had also
sought an advance payment of 10%. This was not acceptable to WRTH so "no
payment, no work", as there was no way that I was going to devote countless
hours and money into updating a terrible mess for no remuneration. And that
Australian hotch-potch is carried through into the 2001 edition.

To WRTH I say: stand back and look at what you are doing: you are putting
out a very poor product, which might LOOK nice and pretty with coloured
pages and maps, but it's CONTENT which counts!


Bob Padula,
404 Mont Albert Rd, Surrey Hills, Victoria 3127, Australia.
E-mail: bobpadula@xxxxxxxxxxx







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