The King is Dead, Long Live the King
Published at 18:57 on 19 December 2011
Of course I made a point to listen to (and record) Voice of Korea today. The executive summary of the broadcast is given in the title; the “news” pretty much followed that summary to a ‘t’, segueing from an eulogy of the “Great Leader” to praise for the “Great Successor”.
Unwittingly, the station in that land of shortages and hardship for the vast majority of its people also gave Kim Jong-Il a most appropriate send-off, being interrupted twice by power cuts. At least, that’s what I assume they were because both transmitters went off the air simultaneously each time.
The edited (I deleted the static during the total of 11 minutes and 46 seconds of dead air in the two interruptions) audio may be found here. If for some reason you want to hear everything in real-time, breaks in transmission and all, that audio may be found here.
Note that if you’re not that interested in hearing the two praise songs (one to Kim Il-Sung, one to Kim Jong-Il) that start each broadcast, the main “news” broadcast starts about 7 minutes and 50 seconds in.