Radio, TV Martí to retool, downsize

[Jimmy2]

With a smaller budget on the horizon, anti-Castro broadcasters Radio and TV Martí will undergo format changes and staffing cuts.

By FRANCES ROBLES

Radio and TV Martí will lay off 20 percent of their workforce in a shake-up aimed at retooling the struggling anti-Castro stations in the face of a steep federal budget cut.

In its funding request to Congress, the agency that oversees the Miami-based Radio and TV Martí submitted a budget that allocates $2.4 million less on the controversial broadcasts.

The U.S.-funded broadcasts, aimed at breaking the information blockade on the island, will change formats in response to the proposed budget cut. Radio Martí will go to an all-news format, and TV Martí will have a five-minute news update every half hour, with other shows in between.

The goal: a smaller staff producing news that's faster and sharper, in a desperate attempt to gain audiences for widely criticized programs that opponents say are overfunded and underwatched.

''We will need to cut 35 jobs, 10 of them already vacant,'' Pedro Roig, director of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, said Tuesday from Prague, where he was attending an agency board meeting. ``We believe we will be able to meet the challenge and be more flexible. For television, when the news is on, we find people's attention span is down. What people want is something shorter, faster, crisper -- a different dynamic than what we were offering.''

Employees got the news at a meeting last week but were left baffled as to how the stations plan to fill air time, several employees said.

Radio and TV Martí, which employ a combined 160 people, have long been accused of being federal boondoggles that employ people with politically influential friends.

Critics say hardly anyone listens to Radio Martí, and virtually no one watches TV Martí. The Cuban government constantly jams the signals, and many people have said the programming is dull.

LIMITED ACCESS

Official figures on the number of viewers and listeners on the island of 11.2 million is not known, but U.S. officials have previously said that there are an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 satellite dishes on rooftops that would allow for access to the broadcasts.

Last year, fewer than 1 percent of 1,200 people surveyed over the telephone said they had listened to Radio Martí in the past week, according to the study released by the Government Accountability Office, the investigating arm of Congress. But the same report said nearly half of new Cuban arrivals to the United States said they had listened to the broadcasts in the past six months.

BUDGET CHANGES

The budget cut was proposed by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees the stations. The agency sent a budget proposal to Congress that includes an overall 3.9 percent funding increase, a boost reflected in places such as Afghanistan. The Cuba program's budget was cut by about 7 percent.

''We are trying to enlarge the audience and streamline aspects of the programming to respond to the feedback we have been getting,'' said Board of Governors spokeswoman Tish King. ``We are making these changes, and it turns out it costs less to do these things.''

She said the budget proposal sent to Congress asks for $32.4 million, down from $34.8 million.

''This is a beginning, but the real issue is what is the rationale for continuing to fund TV Martí?'' said Rep. Bill Delahunt, the Massachusetts Democrat who commissioned a Congressional report blasting the station's lack of audience. ``Why continue to fund an operation that has absolutely zero benefit?''

Roig said he asked that funding for transmissions not be cut, which is why the personnel side took a harder hit.

`IT'S NOT FEASIBLE'

The layoffs and format changes will not take effect until October, but some of the Martí correspondents said they have already decided to quit.

''I understand that the radio side is going to an all-news format. I don't think that works, because it's very difficult to sustain,'' said radio show host Ernesto Betancourt, who was the station's first director when it went on the air in the 1980s.

``It's not feasible. People in Cuba are marginalized and need explanation and commentary on the news.''

Betancourt said he decided to resign because he felt obligated to discuss President Barack Obama's Cuba policies, which he disagrees with.

Obama last month lifted travel restrictions for Americans to visit relatives on the island and permitted unlimited amounts of cash transfers to people there.

''I don't want any part of this,'' Betancourt said, ``not even to criticize it.''