The Voice of America, which first went on the air in 1942, is a multimedia international broadcasting service funded by the US government, through the Broadcasting Board of Governors.
VOA broadcasts more than 1,000 hours of news, information, educational, and cultural programming every week to an estimated worldwide audience of more than 115 million people. VOA employs 1,150 people in the US and overseas.
VOA delivers its programming via shortwave, AM and FM radio, satellite television and the Internet via its website www.VOANews.com. Of its 44 languages, VOA produces programming in 24 languages spoken in ABU member states. A 1948 law known as the Smith-Mundt Act bars VOA from broadcasting to audiences in the United States.
Another law, passed in 1976 and known as the VOA Charter, requires VOA’s programming to adhere to internationally recognised journalistic standards of accuracy, objectivity, comprehensiveness, balance and reliability.
VOA is headquartered in Washington, D.C. The building is equipped with 28 radio broadcast studios, 20 production and recording studios, 36 professional audio mixing and dubbing stations, and four television studios. In addition, there are 20 video editing suites and separate radio and TV master controls, recording, scheduling, and feed intake facilities.