International broadcasting is deliberately aimed at a foreign, rather than a domestic, audience

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International broadcasting is broadcasting that is deliberately aimed at a foreign, rather than a domestic, audience. It usually is broadcast by means of longwave, mediumwave, or shortwave radio, but in recent years has also used direct satellite broadcasting and the Internet as means of reaching audiences.

Although radio and television programs do travel outside national borders, in many cases reception by foreigners is accidental. However, for purposes of propaganda, transmitting religious beliefs, keeping in touch with colonies or expatriates, education, improving trade, increasing national prestige, or promoting tourism and goodwill, broadcasting services have operated external services since the 1920s.

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Broadcasters in one country have several reasons to reach out to an audience in other countries. The examples given below are not meant to be exhaustive, but are illustrative.

One clear reason is for ideological, or propaganda reasons. Many government-owned stations portray their nation in a positive, non-threatening way. This could be to encourage business investment and/or tourism to the nation. Another reason is to combat a negative image produced by other nations or internal dissidents, or insurgents. Radio RSA, the broadcasting arm of the apartheid South African government, is an example of this. A third reason is to promote the ideology of the broadcaster. For example, a program on Radio Moscow from the 1960s to the 1980s was What is Communism?

Other reasons include broadcasting news which might be censored, or at least of little interest, in a nation. The BBC World Service and the Voice of America have emphasized news broadcasts. In addition to these services, during the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, the American Radio Free Europe ran its own domestic service for nations "behind the Iron Curtain."

In the case of emergencies, a nation may broadcast special programs overseas to inform listeners what is occurring. During Iraqi missile strikes on Israel during the 1991 Gulf War, Kol Israel relayed its domestic service on its shortwave service.

Besides ideological reasons, many stations are run by religious broadcasters and are used to provide religious education, religious music, or worship service programs. For example, Vatican Radio, established in 1931, broadcasts such programs. Another station, such as HCJB or Trans World Radio will carry brokered programming from evangelists. In the case of the Broadcasting Service of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, both governmental and religious programming is provided.

Stations also broadcast to international audiences for cultural reasons. Often a station has an official mandate to keep expatriates in touch with the home country. Many broadcasters often relay their national domestic service on shortwave for that reason. Other reasons include teaching a foreign language, such as Radio Exterior de España's Spanish class, Un idioma sin fronteras, or the Voice of America's broadcasts in Special English. In the case of major broadcasters such as the BBC World Service or Radio Australia, there is also an educational outreach.

International broadcasting using the traditional audio only method will not cease any time soon due to its cost efficiencies. However, international broadcasting via television is considered more strategically important at least since the early 2000s.

The BBC World Service was the first broadcaster to consider setting up a satellite television news and information channel as far back as 1976, but ceded being the first to CNN (that had primary access to Canada soon after launch). The defunct BBC World Service Antigua Relay Station was built in 1976, but its setup costs were not known to have been part of the BBCWS decision processes at the time.

In the early 1990s, many international (as well as domestic) 24 hour news and information channels launched as part of the post-Cold War prosperity bubble. There was another burst of global news channels launching in the late 2000s as part the developing world trying to catch up with the developed world in this area.