Fundamental changes proposed by the strategic review will enhance the position and impact of BBC World Service in the new multi-media age
BBC World Service is launching an Arabic language television news and information service for the Middle East – the first publicly funded international TV service in its history.
It marks a fundamental change for BBC World Service, which has led the world with its international radio broadcasting for 70 years and latterly developed as a key online news provider.
BBC World Service is currently the best-known and most respected voice in international radio broadcasting. It broadcasts to 149 million weekly listeners and more than 20 million monthly online users.
The new Arabic language television service is part of a wide-ranging package of investments aimed at maintaining and enhancing BBC World Service’s pre-eminent position and impact in a global digital age.
BBC World Service will make increased investments in new media to improve interactivity and video news reporting, particularly in markets including South America, Russia, South Asia and the Middle East. Increased funds will also go into more FM radio distribution globally and extra marketing.
Global competition
As part of a major reprioritisation exercise, BBC World Service will close 10 language services – mainly covering either Central European countries that are current EU members or are actively seeking membership; where media choice has expanded; or where services have little impact.
Broadcasts in Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Kazakh, Polish, Slovak, Slovene and Thai will cease by March 2006.
Director of BBC World Service, Nigel Chapman, places the changes in the context of global competition and the overall vision of the team in Bush House and beyond.
“We need to provide the most trusted, relevant and high quality international news in the world, and an indispensable service of independent analysis, with an international perspective, which promotes greater understanding of complex issues.
“Audiences are demanding new multi-media services from us. However difficult it is to make changes personally and professionally, audiences come first. But we cannot afford to provide the full range of multi-media services to everyone.
Rapidly changing audience demands
“It’s about providing the right services for each market. We have to make difficult choices and in this package of investment plans to take us to 2010, we have made them.
“They have been approved by the BBC Board of Governors. The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Jack Straw, has also given his approval for the relevant parts of the strategy as required under the terms of our agreement with the Foriegn Commonwealth Office (FCO).
“Like every other media organisation, the BBC is operating against a background of intense competition, fast developing new technology, and rapidly changing audience demands around the world.
Despite this, BBC World Service has maintained a weekly audience of around 150 million listeners and the highest scores of any international broadcaster for trust and reputation.
“However, the pace of the challenge for all of us in BBC World Service is quickening in many parts of the world. We must also ensure that we serve our audiences in the most efficient and focused way, and offer maximum value for money for the UK taxpayers, who fund us.
Increase our impact
“In that context, BBC World Service held a strategic review of all its international language services. During the review, the BBC took into account many factors, including the relative strategic importance of the countries it broadcasts to, the positive changes in the political and media environment over the last 15 years in many of them, and where the BBC has the greatest impact and is likely to maintain it.”
Chapman says: “The review concluded that BBC World Service should be concentrating its non-English services in areas where the media marketplace is less well developed and where audiences have greater need for impartial, independent sources of news and information – such as the Middle East, Africa, Russia, China and parts of South Asia.
“It also highlighted that we should increase our impact by being on relevant platforms in these areas, including television, and offering more reports in video on our online site.”
These strategic directions were echoed in the Government’s Green Paper on the future of the BBC which asked BBC World Service to work out, within its current funding, how it could meet the challenges of widening media choice in many markets, especially the growth of satellite and cable television.
“BBC World Service is already the most successful, trusted and respected voice in the Middle East, with more than 60 years’ experience of broadcasting in the Arabic language on radio and, more recently and successfully, online.
Strong demand for BBC Arabic television
The BBC Arabic television service will build on this legacy by offering trusted and accurate news with an international agenda, using all three media for sharing views and perspectives across the region and the wider world.”
BBC World Service’s research suggests there is strong demand for a BBC Arabic television service in the Middle East. Between 80 and 90 per cent of those questioned in seven Arab cities would be “very likely” or “fairly likely” to watch a BBC Arabic TV service.
The planned investments add up to over £33 million over the next three years. The funding for the new initiatives will come through reprioritising BBC World Service’s existing grant-in-aid funding from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (the grant for 2005/6 is £239 million) and a vigorous programme of efficiencies.
Job losses will inevitably be part of these changes and Chapman states: “We are determined to support all our staff facing redundancy as they search for alternative employment in or outside the BBC, but we have to be realistic; there is a high likelihood of compulsory redundancies.”
Earlier this summer, the BBC reached an agreement with the unions, under the auspices of ACAS, which laid out the terms by which staff could be made compulsorily redundant.
We believe in BBC World Service
When applied to the BBC World Service, this pledge means that no one affected by these changes will leave the BBC on the grounds of compulsory redundancy before the end of 2006. Eligible staff would also receive the appropriate redundancy compensation under BBC policy.
Chapman concludes: “We all believe in BBC World Service and what it does. It has been in Kofi Annan’s famous phrase, “perhaps Britain’s greatest gift to the world in the last century”.
Whilst the mix of services has to evolve as the world changes, the overall core values of BBC World Service will remain the same: to provide quality news and information that people trust, which stands out for its independence, authority and objectivity; and to be a forum for global debate – a “global conversation”.
“Our news services on television and in new media will be judged by those values just as their distinguished predecessors have been.”
Summary of BBC World Service changes: Launch a BBC Arabic language television service in 2007. It will initially broadcast 12 hours a day and be freely available to everyone with a satellite or cable connection in the Middle East. Invest in new media initiatives and technology capable of enabling audience participation, debate and the publishing of audience views through a “global conversation”. Seek to distribute text, audio and video content across a range of on-demand platforms – including broadband and mobile phones. Focus all new media initiatives initially in English, Arabic, Persian, Portuguese for Brazil, Russian, Spanish and Urdu languages. Allocate an extra £4.6 million a year by the end of 2008 to new media projects.
n Invest £3.1 million by the end of 2008 to obtain further local FM partnerships and other radio distribution methods to improve audibility and increase reach. This will counteract the rapid global decline in short wave listening. Increase marketing effort by a further £2.6 million a year by the end of 2008 to secure and retain BBC World Service’s impact in key markets. Seek to explore the viability of developing a grant-in-aid funded Persian TV service; as well as the possibility of making the most of BBC World Service investment in news reporting in video to provide bulletins for television partners and external websites in Latin America, Russia and South Asia. Ensure the English language schedule reflects rapidly changing audience demands and usage and gives BBC World Service a clearer role as a news and information provider. It will have a strong emphasis on explanation, context, analysis and on-the-spot reporting, while offering a global view of events, trends and culture. The agenda will include the arts, sport, business developments, religion and science as now. The programme to modernise international bureaux will be accelerated - with new premises in India, Pakistan, Indonesia and Brazil. The new investments will be funded by a reduction in its provision of vernacular language radio services and a vigorous programme of efficiencies as well as new funds granted to BBC World Service in the 2004 Spending Review. BBC World Service will reduce its portfolio of vernacular language services from 43 languages (including English) to 33. Broadcasts in the following languages will cease by March 2006: Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Kazakh, Polish, Slovak, Slovene and Thai. Following dramatic media market developments in Brazil, where online access to the BBC is now more popular than conventional radio broadcasting, the Portuguese for Brazil radio service will focus on news bulletins for key partner stations, ceasing to produce long-format radio programmes, by March 2006. Its online service is growing its traffic rapidly and will see major new investment to enrich it. BBC World Service will continue to meet its rising costs through a vigorous programme of efficiencies.
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