Friday Marks 70th Anniversary of VOA Broadcasts to Russia

“Hello, this is New York calling.” The words, in Russian, hit Russian airwaves on February 17, 1947 — the first Russian broadcast of the Voice of America.

The broadcasts were an integral part of the United States’ propaganda campaign against the Soviet Union, which was seen as the new threat once World War II was over in 1945.

VOA, which began during the war as a way to convey American news and policies to occupied areas, told its Russian listeners it was meant to “give listeners in the USSR a picture of life in America.” Like its other services, VOA’s Russian service meant to give its audience the “pure and unadulterated truth” about life beyond Soviet borders.

News, music, human interest

The first programs contained a mix of news, music and human interest stories, with programs skewing more and more toward music, particularly jazz, a distinctly American musical innovation that gained considerable popularity in Russia and elsewhere overseas. 

But the Soviet government fought back. In April 1947, just over two months after the broadcasts started, the Soviets began jamming the radio signal electronically in an effort to shut out American influence. 

Critics of VOA complained that the signal jamming in the Soviet Union and elsewhere that U.S. broadcasts were unwelcome made it very difficult to gauge the effectiveness of the American broadcasts.

But VOA programming eventually spread online, with the first Internet programming posted in 1994. 

Programming changes

Over the next decade and a half, U.S. authorities responded to the breakup of the Soviet Union with changes in programming, including the addition of Balkan-language programming and cuts to English programming in the Middle East. 

By 2008, officials had decided to cut Russian broadcasts and provide VOA services in Russian on the Internet only. A former spokeswoman for VOA, Tish King, told the investigative news organization Propublica that Russian jamming made the region “a really challenging market,” leading to the decision to make the programming online-only.
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