What happened after the BBC Seychelles Relay Station closed earlier this year?

What happened after the BBC Seychelles Relay Station closed earlier this year?

BY PROF. DR. WOLFGANG H. THOME, ETN AFRICA CORRESPONDENT | AUG 19, 2014

For many visitors to the Seychelles’ main island of Mahe, the transmission masts of the BBC’s Indian Ocean Short Wave Relay Station on Grand Anse are a fixture. It is a place they remember from driving by when enroute to or from their resorts or taking a drive across the island.

The station, which was built by the BBC in the 1980s, has, however, served its purpose in this day and age of satellite communications. People in Africa and on the Indian Ocean islands today listen to the BBC World Service and the BBC Africa Service on web radio or watch the news live on TV. Learning of the base closure, therefore ended active transmissions at the end of March of this year.

Information from Victoria speaks of bids being invited for equipment from the offices and stores although it is not entirely clear if the landmark masts will remain in place or be dismantled, then shipped elsewhere or perhaps sold as scrap metal.

Also open is the question as to what will happen to the prime land although suggestions have been made that the site may be developed as it is close to the Grand Anse beach. Time for visitors to Mahe to take perhaps that one last look and picture before sooner or later this landscape feature is gone.

SOURCE:
http://www.eturbonews.com/49260/what-happened-after-bbc-seychelles-relay-station-closed-earlier-

Related News
BBC Seychelles relay station to close in March 2014
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2013/seychelles-relay
The decision to close the site has been taken due to changing commercial and technological circumstances. As countries develop and their media markets open, listening and viewing habits have changed. New technology has changed the way audiences listen to BBC programmes and reduced the importance of shortwave broadcasts in much of the area currently served by the IORS, making the IORS commercially unviable.