Trevor Dailey's Weblog

Newspaper image via Allan Weiner, WBCQ The Planet.  (April, 2018)

How many people listen to shortwave radio?

The truth is that there are no worldwide surveys to determine the number of listeners to a particular shortwave station, or to shortwave radio in general. It would simply be too expensive and time-consuming to undertake these kinds of surveys. The number of letters that a station receives is really no accurate indication of its listenership either, since this is often affected by factors such as contests, giveaways, the literacy levels in different countries, listeners' abilities to afford international postage costs, their propensity to write to radio stations in general, etc. Some of the larger government-funded shortwave stations like the BBC and the Voice of America have been able to fund local surveys in certain countries to determine listenership rates. These weekly listenership figures range from less than 1% up to 30% or more of the population of a given city or country, depending on the availability of shortwave receivers and the availability of alternative programming on local radio stations. Shortwave listenership is generally higher in countries where the domestic media are largely government-controlled, or where there is a desire to hear programs from countries which the domestic media do not provide. The BBC and the Voice of America have estimated their worldwide audiences at as much as 200 million per week. Not many stations have all of the technical facilities or the number of languages that these government-funded stations have, but even if they only have a small percentage of the BBC's and VOA's audiences, these are still very significant numbers. 

SOURCE: National Association of Shortwave Broadcasters

Radio Canada International: Canada’s Voice to the World

RCI ends shortwave broadcast  (June 26, 2012)

© Trevor Dailey