Radio Canada International

Radio Canada International

Type	International public broadcaster
Country	Canada
Headquarters	Maison Radio-Canada, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Ownership
Owner	Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
History
Launch date	February 25, 1945
Former names	Voice of Canada (informal, 1945), CBC International Service (1945–1970)
Coverage
Availability	International
Links
Website	ici.radio-canada.ca/rci

Radio Canada International (RCI) is the international broadcasting service of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Prior to 1970, RCI was known as the CBC International Service ("CBC IS"). The broadcasting service was also previously referred to as the Voice of Canada, broadcasting on shortwave from powerful transmitters in Sackville, New Brunswick. "In its heyday", said Radio World magazine, "Radio Canada International was one of the world's most listened-to international shortwave broadcasters".^[1] However, as the result of an 80 percent budget cut, shortwave services were terminated in June 2012, and RCI became accessible exclusively via the Internet. It also reduced its services to five languages (in contrast with the 14 languages it used in 1990) and ended production of its own news service.^[2]

On December 3, 2020, RCI announced that its staff was being reduced from 20 to 9 (in contrast to 200 employees in 1990)^[3] and that its English and French language sections would close and be replaced by curated content from the domestic CBC and Radio-Canada services. RCI would also begin offering online services in Punjabi and Tagalog.^[4] The changes went into effect on May 19, 2021.^[5][6]