A woman in Somalia uses her cellphone. (Pete Heinlein/VOA)

The Pew Research Center reports that 91% of U.S. adults own a cellphone, with smartphones comprising 61% of that total. Increasingly this is how people get their news. Although the BBG operates in areas with media markets that widely diverge from the U.S., our own research shows that from feature phones to iPads, mobile is definitely on the rise.

As I blogged about last August, 73.1% of Nigerians have a mobile phone. Use of mobile is also prevalent across many other less-developed countries. About eight in 10 Indonesians (81.0%) say they have mobile phones in their household. In Mali’s capital, Bamako, nine in 10 adults say they have a mobile phone in their household.  More than seven in 10 Somalis (72.4%) say they personally own a mobile phone. Nine in 10 Russians (90.2%) say they personally have cellular phones, and there is virtually no difference between urban and rural areas in ownership in Russia.

Within U.S. international media we must meet our audiences on their platforms of preference.  Our challenge is to adapt and innovate within our existing resources.  Innovation, outstanding content and pivotal partnerships are the keys to success in this dynamic arena.

Our BBG in-house innovators are making it possible for our global audiences to carry the news in their pockets wherever they may go.

Our Office of Digital & Design Innovation (ODDI) collaborated with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to significantly expand our mobile offerings.  The Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Voice of America and Alhurra TV have launched or about to launch a new suite of apps to let our audiences get push notifications of breaking news, stream radio podcasts on demand, as well as download content for offline viewing. Using our new apps for Android and iOS, individuals can easily consume and share content in over 40 languages, a historic innovation, something that has never been done before on a mobile news app.

Earlier this year, ODDI also partnered with Radio Free Asia on bringing long-form journalism across closed borders by releasing an iBook called “Remembering Tiananmen” in both English and Mandarin. The iBook format allows our audiences to fully immerse themselves in our journalism on their tablet devices, and to learn about the China 1989 protests via a multimedia experience. Now ODDI is collaborating with Voice of America to release an interactive book expanding its Immigration: The New Face of America coverage, and the team is working on a second book with RFA in the Uyghur language.

These are just the most recent examples of the innovations underway across the BBG. Credit goes to the internal entrepreneurs and innovators who spot opportunities and pursue them, create compelling content such as our Middle East Broadcasting Networks’ Syria Stories, develop groundbreaking mobile apps, and craft other avenues critical to amplifying our journalists’ top-notch and sorely-needed reporting to countries where the media are not entirely free.

March 21 Briefing on Workplace Engagement Action Plan

As is true across the government, at the BBG we are wrestling with the very real budgetary challenges of sequestration and yet another continuing resolution. Our day-to-day operations have been impacted in ways that may go largely unnoticed in the U.S. – except by our dedicated employees.

The team here sought to put our audience and employees first and managed to avoid furloughs, despite the 5% budget cut under sequestration. No one at the BBG is being furloughed, which is a big accomplishment in my book.

That means finding savings in other areas than salaries. There are difficult choices to make but I am proud of the unity of purpose our staff has shown seeking avenues to cut costs but not people or programs. This includes trimming some low-impact shortwave transmissions, freezing hiring, curtailing travel, postponing expenditures on non-essential items, and cutting funds for awards.

While tackling serious fiscal issues, we have also outlined a plan to tackle long-standing, critical workplace issues. I am referring to issues that have come up as persistent concerns to employees. Last week we had a very productive all-hands kick-off to our action plan for workplace engagement. We shared and discussed the plan that is based on staff input and feedback, we introduced a dedicated group of staff volunteer facilitators who are serving as an additional bridge between employees and management, and we tasked managerial action leaders to lead the way on implementing constructive changes. We are working with and drawing upon the expertise and experience of the Partnership for Public Service. They have a track record of coaching organizations through cultural change that we want to tap into. We know it will take time but the feedback I got from our employees is that they are willing to join us in this groundbreaking endeavor.

So as we all look to welcome cherry blossoms and Spring here in Washington, I am reassured that our unity of purpose and mission at the BBG can and will withstand the fiscal challenges ahead and we will continue to work together to innovate and transform U.S. international broadcasting to better serve our audiences and cultivate our human resources at the same time.

Satellite dishes number in the thousands on rooftops in Iran. (Iranian Student’s News Agency)

Sitting in on a whiz-bang presentation at the USC/Public Diplomacy Council’s forum this week by BBG’s dynamic and talented CIO and CTO, André Mendes, I was reminded of important progress we’ve made in our transmission and technical infrastructure.  We now have the most reliable transmission network – ever – providing the best array of signals on all platforms to our audiences worldwide. This means transmission downtimes that are fractional – often less than one percent. This also means we’ve tapped new methods for reaching our audiences in key regions.

I’m thinking in particular of the satellite “radio with slate” concept that is now reaching China, Tibet and Iran unobstructed.  We know there is growing use in China of these small satellite dishes, something in the range of 11 percent, according to the most recently available data – and by now, that number would be higher.  In Iran, the proliferation of small satellite dishes far exceeds that of China. This is a direct consequence of a precipitous drop in the cost of these satellite set-ups and their ready availability in  normal commercial venues and the black market. In these places that continue to inhibit news of issues deemed uncomfortable to authorities, access to the balanced news of our broadcasters is a real lifeline.

Similarly, our successful Internet Anti-Censorship program continues to employ leading-edge technology. We have developed and are distributing a credit card-sized network device that contains web addresses of popular sites, checks their accessibility from countries that censor access to the web and reports these blockages back in real time. Another tool developed by the BBG’s IAC program allows users to download and browse web content from a satellite feed outside the authoritarian firewalls and slow bandwidth encountered in places like Iran and Cuba even if the Internet is completely shut-off.

In some cases, we must transition from the traditional platforms that we’ve been using for many years, such as shortwave, and onto the newer platforms.  We can’t do it so quickly that we hurt our audiences.  For example, in places like Nigeria and rural Afghanistan, we continue to have substantial SW radio audiences even as there is an explosion of use of cell phone technology.

At the same time, we now deliver content via mobile and have grown users of U.S. international broadcasting’s content to over six million new users per month. For example, we’re reacting to changes in Mali and other hotspots by creating simple, low-bandwidth audio distribution channels for mobile phones.

Given the speed of change in marketplaces around the globe and the shifting habits of our old and new audiences, I am gratified that our dedicated team has made such important progress even as I know we have to be faster and more nimble in the days to come. I know we can be!

Coverage like this interview by RFE/RL’s Azadi Radio in Kabul, Afghanistan, could become accessible to U.S. audiences under a new law.

Recently, Congress passed and the President signed legislation that will ease restrictions on access by people in the United States to the world-class news, information and cultural programming created by Broadcasting Board of Governors’ (BBG) entities.

Under a decades-old law known as the Smith-Mundt Act, we had been prohibited from making available to domestic audiences the programs that we had been producing for people overseas.  The advent of the Internet and satellite broadcasting, of course, made it difficult for U.S. international broadcasting entities to keep their content away from American audiences, and it was not clear whether the outdated law restricted our use of certain distribution platforms.

Congress and the President agreed that the law needed to be clarified, and they lifted this restriction in legislation that will take effect in July.

The law provides better transparency on agency activities and will offer Americans a better understanding of the journalistic mission of U.S. international broadcasting.  At the same time, it may give taxpayers a clearer view of how America’s international broadcasting dollars are being spent.

Our objective news and information programming could benefit a variety of domestic audiences who request that programming, especially diaspora communities that may have scant access to information in their native languages.

The new legislation does not change the BBG’s founding statute, so we’re only allowed to create programs for international audiences, and we cannot disseminate programs within the United States outside a request for that programming.  Our funds will continue to be spent serving overseas audiences.

The legislation was just signed into law last week, and it doesn’t take effect for six months, so we have time to consider all of the effects it may have and the opportunities it may present.

In short, this is a very welcome change that has been long sought by the BBG and some of our public diplomacy colleagues outside government as well as at the State Department. But it does nothing to change the agency’s overarching mission, which is to inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy.