The 2010 edition of the World Radio TV Handbook (WRTH) was published on 4 December 2009. Does this venerable publication - now in its 64th edition - live up to its claim to be the World’s most comprehensive and up-to-date guide to broadcasting?

WRTH serves two markets, whose interests overlap – the professional broadcasters and the individual listeners interested in discovering what’s on the air beyond their countries’ borders. For the past quarter of century, many of the latter have purchased Passport to World Band Radio (PWBR), which concentrated on shortwave broadcasts. But with the collapse of the shortwave market in North America and Europe, the publisher decided not to publish a 2010 edition. Many listeners used to purchase both books, but those who only bought PWBR are now looking for an alternative, so will the WRTH suit their needs?

For newer readers who liked the convenience of bandscanning using Passport’s graphical frequency charts, the WRTH will come as a disappointment. The Unique Selling Point of WRTH has always been the sheer quantity of information between its covers, but it means that space is at a premium, and the information is presented in text format using a small font. The leading – the space between individual lines – is also reduced to a minimum in the reference sections, and as I get older I find it increasingly difficult to read. I suspect I am not alone, as the average age of members of some listeners’ clubs is now over 60!

Electronic format?
The long-term answer to this problem would be to offer the WRTH in electronic format, giving the individual reader the luxury of adjusting the font size to suit his/her needs. The CIA World Factbook has this year switched to electronic publication and abandoned the printed edition, and as a result it can be updated twice a month rather than once a year. As a commercial publication that depends on advertising revenue, WRTH cannot make the switch so easily, but given that the amount of information that has to be squeezed in continues to increase year on year, a format that doesn’t depend on space availability would be welcome.

As it is, the editors are forced to delete information in one place if they want to expand it in another. For example, this year there is no separate table of North American mediumwave (AM) stations by frequency, which has allowed them to double the number of stations in the US country section. Actually this will be welcomed by those who listen to mediumwave stations over long distances, as the country listings include addresses and telephone numbers for the stations.

Lack of new receivers
The receiver review section used to be one of the major selling points of both WRTH and PWBR, but with the decline of shortwave there are now very few new products to review. This is also reflected in the lack of advertisements for receivers. Author John Nelson says he was “not surprised but merely rather sad” to see no new DRM receivers in 2009, and he points out that DRM+ (the extension of DRM to include the current FM band) isn't 'anywhere near making the transition from the laboratory to the outside world.' Mr Nelson says he is 'tending more and more to the view that DRM’s time has come and gone.'

In the absence of anything significant to review, a mere ten pages are devoted to current receivers this year, and even some of those are low-cost portables that are likely to be of very limited interest to WRTH readers. However, there is a look at ‘Cold War Classics’ – professional receivers of bygone years, which includes the Racal RA17 that I used when I worked at BBC Monitoring.

John Nelson puts on another hat to revisit the BBC World Service, to find out about what's changed since he worked there. As a former employee, he knows what questions to ask. He also has some personal recollections of just how old-fashioned it used to be: “Most of its studio equipment was obsolescent, its canteen was dreadful, and its layout thoroughly inconvenient.” For anyone with the misguided notion that broadcasting has any glamour, this is an article well worth reading.

Looks the same - but thoroughly updated
If you’re unfamiliar with WRTH, for example if you have been used to PWBR as your reference book of choice, you’ll find a description of its contents and structure in our review of the 2009 edition. There's also more information on the WRTH website.
 

The striking thing about WRTH is that it looks so similar from year to year, partly because its cramped layout leaves little room for highlighting things, but as you begin to use it on a day-to-day basis you realise just how much hard work has gone into updating the information. So its claim to be the World’s most comprehensive and up-to-date guide to broadcasting is indeed more than justified. At Radio Netherlands Worldwide, we couldn’t be without it. If you like listening to radio broadcasts from abroad, neither can you.
 

Publisher: Nicholas Hardyman
No of pages: 672
Publisher: WRTH Publications Limited, PO Box 290, Oxford, OX2 7FT, United Kingdom.
Order Fax: +44 (0)1865 514405.
Web (secure online ordering): www.wrth.com
E-mail:
Cover price: £23.00 including airmail postage worldwide.
ISBN: 978-0-9555481-2-3

Distributed in the USA by Innovative Logistics, 575 Prospectr St, Lakewood, NJ 08701. Web: www.innlog.net.
Distributed in Germany by Gert Wohlfarth GmbH. E-mail: . ISBN: 978-3-87463-454-0.