VOA Historical Highlights: 1980s


VOA HISTORY - Historical highlights

Our Historical Highlights present a listing of significant dates and developments in VOA’s history. For a more detailed discussion of VOA’s overall development over the decades, visit our in-depth illustrated history chapters, which include historic audio clips and photographs. Click on the decade below to find more detailed information about that time in VOA's history.
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1980s

1983: VOA launches a $1.3 billion program to rebuild and modernize programming and technical capabilities. In Washington, 19 studios are constructed, a new Master Control complex is installed, and a Network Control Center is built to coordinate and direct VOA's domestic and overseas transmitting stations.

1989: VOA Mandarin and Cantonese broadcasts are increased to bring millions of Chinese listeners accurate reports of the pro-democracy movement that filled Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and the streets of dozens of Chinese cities. Chinese government begins to jam VOA Mandarin broadcasts, a practice that still continues today.

June 8, 1989: As a response to the Tiananmen massacre, television cameras are brought to a VOA news studio to transmit via satellite, for the first time ever, live video of Mandarin-language newscasts to the People’s Republic of China. VOA Mandarin scripts are scrolled beneath news readers in synchronized fashion as newscasts are read. The telecasts cease in August 1989.