UNESCO World Radio Day website, Oldrich Cip, chairman of the High Frequency Co-ordination Conference (HFCC): "The current multi-platform media environment has created both challenges and opportunities for shortwave radio. While a number of shortwave broadcasting services have recently been severely cut or completely phased out, this distinctive medium remains relevant for a large critical audience interested in programming that focuses on both regional and international affairs and is broadcast from the perspective of different communities around the world. A shortwave transmitter can reach both local and global audiences. This is due to the unique long-distance propagation property of shortwave radio by means of multiple reflections from layers in the upper earth's atmosphere. Shortwave radio can provide service where other platforms such as satellite, FM or Internet are unavailable due to high cost, geographical location, lack of infrastructure, or even during natural or man-made disasters. Receivers are inexpensive and require no access fees. Shortwave radio is important for people living or travelling in isolated regions. It reaches across the digital divide to the most disadvantaged and marginalised societies. This is in keeping with the Declaration and Action Plan of the World Summit on the Information Society." See also www.hfcc.org.

UNESCO World Radio Day website, Vasiliy Strelnikov, host of "From Russia With Love" on Voice of Russia: "Radio is my old love, from childhood. I was born and grew up in the United States and there I felt in love with radio. I was always impressed by the process itself when on the one side there is a person in front of the microphone and on the other side, somewhere far away from him, there is a listener in front of the radio. And it keeps surprising me how one can influence another at such a great distance. In this sense, radio was always something magical for me. ... In the Soviet period when there was only propaganda on-air I managed to make an entertainment rock-n-roll music radio show amid all this propaganda, the program was called the 'Listeners’ Request Club'. This time we just wanted to make something the same."

See also the World Radio Day home page.

Broadcasting Board of Governors press release, 13 Feb 2013: "Today is World Radio, and BBG would like to celebrate our radio broadcasters as they work to provide news and information to those who need it most. In 2012, our broadcasters produced thousands of hours of radio programming to 96 million people around the globe, many of whom live in oppressive societies and who depend on us for news and information. BBG and its broadcasters need to be flexible and adapt rapidly to developments in communication technologies and the censorship efforts of hostile regimes. In addition to short wave and AM/FM frequencies, programming is distributed in non-conventional ways, such as over satellite, streaming audio on the Internet, podcasts and even thumb drives! Our broadcasters also use social media, email and SMS to further engage their audiences in issues that affect them."

Reporters sans frontières, 13 Feb 2013: "The intermittent blocking of local retransmission by foreign stations such as RFI in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the BBC in Rwanda or Voice of America in Ethiopia and the jamming of exile radio stations such as Radio Erena in repressive Eritrea highlight the problem of government hostility to radio. ... [R]adio broadcasting, like TV broadcasting, is closely controlled by the most authoritarian governments in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. There is no sign of political or social debate on Turkmenistan’s radio stations, which are all state owned. There is no criticism of the government on Azerbaijani, Uzbek or Kazakh FM radio. But foreign-based stations broadcasting mainly on the Internet – such as Echoes of Moscow, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and the BBC – play a key role in breaking the news blockade in these countries. The local-language services of RFE/RL and the BBC (some of which are threatened with closure) provide rare job opportunities to Belarusian, Azerbaijani, Turkmen and Uzbek independent journalists."