Funding cuts by the US and South Korean governments have led to an 80 per cent drop in the number of hours of outside broadcasts reaching North Korea.
38 North, a website which analyses North Korea said that six stations have ceased their broadcasts in the last six months.
The US-backed Radio Free Asia ended its broadcasts after government funding was cut. Similarly South Korean backed stations, Voice of the People and Echo of Hope have also ended their broadcasts.
The broadcasts are a sticking point in North-South relations, with the North regarding the broadcasts as subversive propaganda.
The South Korean government has attempted a more conciliatory approach to the North by halting both the radio broadcasts and the use of loudspeakers that blast out their views across the border. Authorities are also clamping down on activists sending balloons filled with leaflets across the border and last month six Americans were arrested after they attempted to float Bibles across the sea into the North.
Anti-persecution group Open Doors has raised concerns that the cuts will make it more difficult for Christian media to reach the “hermit nation”.
Timothy Cho, North Korean spokesperson for Open Doors UK said, "It’s hard to know exactly how many people were listening to these broadcasts, but it was in the hundreds of thousands, possibly millions. When you speak to former members of the North Korean elite who defected, they tell us how significant that news from these sources was. They were learning what was going on outside."
It is believed that, despite the most intense persecution on earth, there are still around 400,000 Christians in North Korea.
Cho said, "This will be a huge discouragement to our Christian brothers and sisters in North Korea. These stations have been a resource through which people have come to faith and depend on for up-to-date outside news. It has offered so much hope to people to realise that they are not forgotten."
