Radio Taiwan International (RTI; ) is the English name and call sign of the Central Broadcasting System (CBS), national broadcaster and international radio service of

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

. It is a public radio station that broadcasts in 14 languages around the world via the internet, shortwave and podcasts. It also has Facebook fan pages in five additional languages.

History

The Central Broadcasting System was founded in 1928 as the voice of the

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT) is a major political party in the Republic of China (Taiwan). It was the one party state, sole ruling party of the country Republic of China (1912-1949), during its rule from 1927 to 1949 in Mainland China until Retreat ...

(KMT) government quartered in

Nanjing Nanjing or Nanking is the capital of Jiangsu, a province in East China. The city, which is located in the southwestern corner of the province, has 11 districts, an administrative area of , and a population of 9,423,400. Situated in the Yang ...

mainland China "Mainland China", also referred to as "the Chinese mainland", is a Geopolitics, geopolitical term defined as the territory under direct administration of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War. In addit ...

. During the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War was fought between the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China and the Empire of Japan between 1937 and 1945, following a period of war localized to Manchuria that started in 1931. It is considered part ...

the KMT was forced by the Japanese forces and pro-Japanese "rebel" Wang Jingwei government to relocate the radio station — along with the capital city, first to Hankou in the central Hubei Province and then to

Chongqing ChongqingPostal Romanization, Previously romanized as Chungking ();. is a direct-administered municipality in Southwestern China. Chongqing is one of the four direct-administered municipalities under the State Council of the People's Republi ...

in south-central China. After the conclusion of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, which saw the surrender and withdrawal of Japanese forces, the KMT and the

Chinese Communist Party The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...

resumed their

civil war A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

. The defeated KMT retreated to Taiwan in 1949 and the Central Broadcasting System moved with them.

Current status

RTI currently offers audio news and programs about Taiwan in 14 languages. It also has YouTube channels offering video news and programs and can be seen on Twitter and Facebook as well. After undergoing restructuring during the period 1996–98, CBS broadcast to mainland China and the rest of the world under the call sign ''Radio Taipei International'' and the ''Voice of Asia''. ''Radio Taipei International'' essentially replaced the international radio services of the Broadcasting Corporation of China (BCC), known as the '' Voice of Free China''. ''Radio Taipei International'' broadcast to China and to an international audience; by contrast, the ''Voice of Asia'' was broadcast to the Asia-Pacific region only and offered a lighter format than RTI. In 2002 the ''Voice of Asia'' call sign was dropped to leave ''Radio Taipei International'' as the sole broadcasting name for the service. This was in turn changed to ''Radio Taiwan International'', to avoid confusion on the part of listeners, who had trouble associating Taipei with Taiwan. In addition, via domestic

AM radio AM broadcasting is radio broadcasting using amplitude modulation (AM) transmissions. It was the first method developed for making audio radio transmissions, and is still used worldwide, primarily for medium wave (also known as "AM band") transmi ...

and shortwave, CBS also broadcast three different "networks" in Chinese (mainly Mandarin and Taiwanese) to the mainland. These networks were the ''News Network'' (a news and information-oriented service), the ''Variety Network'' (a music and features-oriented service, also known as the ''Mandarin Programme'', ''Taiwanese Programme'', ''Perspective Program'', or the ''Pop Network Programme''), and the ''Dialect Network'' (programming aimed at the minorities of China). In time, the ''Variety Network'' was renamed the ''General Network'', the ''News Network'' became the ''Mainland Network'', and eventually the ''Mainland'', ''General'', and ''Dialect Network'' were merged in with ''Radio Taiwan International''. One consequence of this was that CBS could no longer broadcast domestically over AM radio.

Broadcasting details

Radio Taiwan International broadcasts to the following countries and regions: *

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

Korea Korea is a peninsular region in East Asia consisting of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, and smaller islands. Since the end of World War II in 1945, it has been politically Division of Korea, divided at or near the 38th parallel north, 3 ...

* The Philippines *

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

South Asia South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Programming is carried in Taiwanese Mandarin (Guoyu),

Taiwanese Hokkien Taiwanese Hokkien ( , ), or simply Taiwanese, also known as Taigi ( zh, c=臺語, tl=Tâi-gí), Taiwanese Southern Min ( zh, c=臺灣閩南語, tl=Tâi-uân Bân-lâm-gí), Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively ...

, English,

Cantonese Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...

Taiwanese Hakka Taiwanese Hakka is a language group consisting of Hakka dialects spoken in Taiwan, and mainly used by people of Hakka ancestry. Taiwanese Hakka is divided into five main dialects: Sixian, Hailu, Dabu, Raoping, and Zhao'an. The most widel ...

, Japanese, Indonesian, Thai, Tagalog (Filipino), Vietnamese, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Russian and most recently Ukrainian (previously also in

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

, Burmese, Mongolian and Tibetan). As of 1 July 2013, RTI terminated its shortwave broadcasts to North and South America due to budget cuts caused by the closure of WYFR, a Christian religious shortwave station which RTI leased airtime from and whose Florida transmitter RTI used to broadcast to the Americas. RTI programming was broadcast over WYFR on 5.95 MHz and 9.61 MHz between 17:00/18:00 hrs. Eastern until 03:00/04:00. After that point,

Family Radio Family Radio is a non-profit Christian radio network based in Franklin, Tennessee, United States. Established in 1959, Family Radio airs Calvinist teaching and Christian music. The network is most widely known for its false Family Radio#Failed ...

continued to host RTI's audio service to the Chinese community in the

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

area on a digital subchannel of Family Radio's television station, WFME-TV; this would end in October 2013, when the station was revamped into an international ethnic station, WNYJ-TV. Radio Taiwan broadcasts daily in Mandarin, Taiwanese (Minnan or Hokkien), Hakka, Cantonese, English, German, French, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian and Korean. It also has Facebook pages in English. A24 Shortwave Frequency List
Bi Newsletter 2024

Programs

* Taiwan Insider, its flagship weekly video and audio news magazine program * Taiwan Today, an award-winning audio program on politics and society * Feast Meets West, an award-winning program about food and culture *Love! On Air, a program on different aspects of romantic relationships in Taiwan, hosted by Brendan Wong *As a Student, its only program focuses on campus life in Taiwan, hosted by YouTube creator Wanson Wang *Behind the Beats, the flagship music program on the music scene in Taiwan, hosted by Emma Benack

References

External links