Everything about The Bbc World Service totally explained
The
BBC World Service is one of the most widely recognised
international broadcasters, transmitting in 33 languages to many parts of the world through multiple technologies. The
English language service broadcasts 24 hours a day. In May 2007 the BBC reported that the World Service's average weekly audience had reached 183 million people, beating the previous record of 163 million listeners set the previous year. The World Service is funded by
grant-in-aid through the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office by the
British Government — unlike the
BBC's domestic
radio and
television services, which are primarily funded by a compulsory
licence fee levied on every household in the
United Kingdom using a
television. Despite this form of funding, the World Service remains
editorially independent, although the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office have the right to decide which countries the service broadcasts to.
The current head of the World Service is Nigel Chapman.
History
The BBC World Service began as the
BBC Empire Service in 1932 as a
shortwave service. Its broadcasts were aimed principally at
English speakers in the outposts of the
British Empire, or as
George V put it in the first-ever
Royal Christmas Message, the "men and women, so cut off by the snow, the desert, or the sea, that only voices out of the air can reach them."
Initial hopes for the Empire Service were low. The Director General, Lord
Reith said in the opening programme:
"Don't expect too much in the early days; for some time we'll transmit comparatively simple programmes, to give the best chance of intelligible reception and provide evidence as to the type of material most suitable for the service in each zone. The programmes will neither be very interesting nor very good." This address was read out five times as it was broadcast live to different parts of the world.
On
3 January 1938 the first foreign language service,
Arabic, was launched.
German programmes commenced shortly before the start of the
Second World War and by the end of 1942 broadcasts were being made in all major European languages.
The World Service gained a special position in world broadcasting during the Second World War as it broadcast
news to a wide range of audiences. The German Service, created on
29 March 1938 and discontinued in 1999, played an important part in the propaganda war against
Nazi Germany.
The service has been located at
Bush House since a landmine damaged the studios at original home
Broadcasting House on
8 December 1940. The
European Service was first to relocate, followed by the rest of the
Overseas Service in 1958. As part of a larger changes in terms of the use of BBC properties, it's planned that the World Service will return to Broadcasting House in 2008 when the BBC's lease on Bush House expires and new facilities at Broadcasting House become available.
In August 1985, the service went off the air for the first time ever. Workers were striking in protest at the
British government's decision to ban a documentary featuring an interview with
Martin McGuinness of
Sinn Féin.
As part of a restructuring process, ten foreign language services were closed down in March 2006 to create enough financial services to fund a new
BBC Arabic Television service for the
Middle East.
Polish was one of those that closed.
Aim
According to the World Service, its aim is to "be the world's best-known and most-respected voice in international broadcasting, thereby bringing benefit to Britain".
The
UK Government spent
£225 million on the World Service in 2005. This spending of the
British taxpayers' money by the Government was justified by
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1985. According to
Hansard, the journal of the
British Parliament, in an answer to a question in the
House of Commons, Mrs Thatcher said: "The World Service earns every penny we put into it, by promoting our world-view and policy. It has done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future".
The BBC is a
Crown Corporation of the British Government, but operates independently of it. There is no direct control of the BBC by the British Government. The World Service does, however, promote the British point of view and
foreign policy. Examples of this are the coverage of the
Suez Crisis in July 1956, its coverage of the
Falklands War from April to June 1982, and its coverage of the handover of Britain's former colony of
Hong Kong in 1997.
The BBC World Service is widely respected in parts of the world where the media isn't free. With the BBC’s powerful
transmitters broadcasting in the local language, the BBC World Service can be the only source of reliable news not manipulated by the local government. This is the strategy that the BBC adopted successfully during the
Cold War, becoming a widely respected broadcaster behind the
Iron Curtain throughout the
Soviet Union and
Eastern Europe. However, former Soviet dissidents such as
Vladimir Bukovsky,
Russian opposition's presidential candidate to replace
Vladimir Putin, and
KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky CGB have criticized the BBC Russian service for soft-pedaling the death of
Alexander Litvinenko. An article in
The Economist suggested that the BBC's desire to continue to use local transmitters in the Russian Federation may be cause.. In its 2007 Foreign & Commonwealth Office Annual Report, the House of Commons' Foreign Affairs Committee concluded about the BBC Russian Service's joint project with Bolshoe Radio: "the development of a partnership with the international arm of a Russian state broadcasting network puts the BBC World Service’s reputation for editorial independence at risk.".
The World Service, through "
Learning English
", a constituent part of its large
website, devotes significant resources to helping
people learn English.
Statistics and languages
The following audience estimates are from research conducted in 2004 by independent market research agencies on behalf of the BBC:
| Language |
2004 |
2006 |
| English |
39 million |
44 million |
| Persian |
20.4 million |
22 million |
| Hindi |
16.1 million |
21 million |
| Urdu |
10.4 million |
12 million |
| Arabic |
12.4 million |
16 million |
In Africa and the Middle East the service broadcasts to 66 million listeners, of which 18.7 million are in
English.
Besides
English, the BBC World Service currently broadcasts in
Albanian,
Arabic,
Azeri,
Bengali,
Burmese,
Caribbean English,
Cantonese,
French,
Hausa,
Hindi,
Indonesian,
Kinyarwanda/
Kirundi,
Kyrgyz,
Macedonian,
Mandarin,
Nepali,
Pashto,
Persian,
Portuguese for
Africa and
Brazil,
Romanian,
Russian,
Serbian,
Sinhala,
Somali,
Spanish,
Swahili,
Tamil,
Turkish,
Ukrainian,
Urdu,
Uzbek, and
Vietnamese.
The
German broadcasts were stopped in March 1999 after 60 years, as research showed that the majority of German listeners tuned in to the
English version. Broadcasts in
Dutch,
Finnish,
French for Europe,
Hebrew,
Italian,
Japanese and
Malay were stopped for similar reasons.
On
25 October 2005 it was announced that the
Bulgarian,
Croatian,
Czech,
Greek,
Hungarian,
Kazakh,
Polish,
Slovak,
Slovene and
Thai language radio services would end by March 2006 in order to finance the launch of an
Arabic and
Persian language TV news channel in 2007.
Transmission
Traditionally, the BBC World Service relied on shortwave, because of its ability to overcome barriers of censorship, distance and spectrum scarcity. To this end, the BBC has maintained a worldwide network of
shortwave relay stations since the 1940s, mainly in (former) British colonies. Over the decades, some of these stations have acquired increasingly powerful
mediumwave and
FM outlets as well. A special use of such cross-border broadcasts has been emergency messages to
British subjects abroad, such as the advice to evacuate
Jordan during the
Black September incidents of September 1970. These facilities were privatised in 1997 and are operated as part of a wider network by
VT Communications (formerly Merlin), which also brokers time for dozens of other sites. It is common for BBC programmes to air on traditionally
Voice of America or
ORF transmitters, while their programming is relayed by a station physically located in the UK.
Since the 1980s,
satellite distribution has made it possible for local stations to relay BBC programming, typically
news bulletins but also educational, drama, and sports programming. The World Service is available as a free (basic) channel on a large number of satellite and cable systems. Both a
live stream and an archive of previous programmes (now including
podcasts) are available on the
Internet.
Africa
The BBC World Service has a large audience in English-speaking Africa, and is engaged in a long-standing battle with
Radio France Internationale in French-speaking Africa . Broadcasts have traditionally come from the UK, Cyprus (see Europe), the large former BBC Atlantic Relay Station on
Ascension Island, and the smaller
Lesotho Relay Station and Indian Ocean Relay Station on
Seychelles. A large part of the English schedule is taken up by specialist programming from and for Africa. In the 1990s, the BBC added FM facilities in many African capitals.
Americas
BBC shortwave broadcasts to this region were traditionally enhanced by the Atlantic Relay Station and the
Caribbean Relay Company, a station in
Antigua run jointly with
Deutsche Welle. In addition, an exchange agreement with
Radio Canada International gave access to their station in
New Brunswick. However, "changing listening habits" led the World Service to end shortwave radio transmission directed to
North America and
Australasia on
July 1 2001. A
shortwave listener coalition formed to oppose the change. Currently, both
XM Radio and
Sirius Satellite Radio rebroadcast the World Service over commercial
satellite radio to
Canada and the
United States, and
public radio stations often carry World Service news broadcasts over
AM and
FM radio, often through
Public Radio International (PRI). In addition, the BBC and PRI also co-produce the program
The World with
WGBH Radio
Boston. The BBC is also involved with
The Takeaway morning news programme.
The BBC continues to broadcast to the Caribbean, Central America and South America in several languages, including a specialist Caribbean news service in English. It is also possible to receive the
Caribbean and
Western African shortwave radio broadcasts from eastern
North America, but the BBC doesn't guarantee reception in this area. It has recently ended its eccentric specialist programming to the
Falkland Islands but continues to provide a stream of World Service programming to the
Falkland Islands Broadcasting Service.
Asia
The World Service's largest audiences have been in Asia for several decades, especially the
Middle East,
Near East and
South Asia. Transmission facilities in the UK and Cyprus have been supplemented by the former BBC Eastern Relay Station in
Oman and the Far Eastern Relay Station in
Singapore. The East Asian Relay Station moved from
Hong Kong to
Thailand when the former British colony reverted to
Chinese sovereignty in 1997. Together, these facilities give the BBC World Service have given an easily-accessible signal in regions where shortwave listening has traditionally been popular. The English shortwave frequencies of 6195, 9740, 15360 and 17760 kHz are widely known. The largest audiences are in English,
Hindi,
Urdu,
Bengali and other major languages of South Asia, where BBC broadcasters are household names. The
Persian service is essentially the national broadcaster of
Afghanistan, along with its
Iranian audience. The World Service is available up to eighteen hours in English across Asia, and in Arabic for the Middle East. With the addition of relays in Afghanistan and Iraq (following the British invasions of these countries) these services have access to most of the Middle and Near East, at least in the evening. In Hong Kong and Singapore, the BBC World Service in English is essentially treated as a domestic broadcaster, easily available through long-term agreements with
RTHK and
MediaCorp.
By contrast, there are isolated pockets of severe difficulty. Iran,
Iraq and
Myanmar have all
jammed the BBC in the past, and powerful broadcasts in
Mandarin are still made unlistenable by the
People's Republic of China.
Japan and
Korea have little tradition of World Service listening, although during the 1970s to 1980s, shortwave listening used to be popular in Japan. In those two countries, the BBC World Service had been only available via shortwave and the Internet. As of September 2007, a satellite transmission (subscription required) became available by Skylife (Channel 791) in South Korea.
Europe
Formerly BBC shortwave transmitters are located in the
United Kingdom at
Rampisham,
Woofferton and
Skelton. The former BBC East Mediterranean Relay Station is in
Cyprus. The World Service uses a mediumwave transmitter at
Orford Ness to provide English-language coverage to
Europe, including on the
frequency 648
kHz (which can be heard in the south-east of
England). A second channel traditionally broadcast in various Central European languages, but in 2005 it began regular English-language transmissions via the
DRM format. This is a digital shortwave technology that VT expects to become the standard for cross-border transmissions in developed countries.
In the 1990s, the BBC purchased and constructed large mediumwave and FM networks in the former Soviet bloc, particularly the Czech (
BBC Czech Section), Slovak Republics (
BBC Slovak Section), Poland (
BBC Polish Section) (where it was a national network) and
Russia (
Russian Section). It had built up a strong audience during the Cold War, whilst economic restructuring made it difficult for these governments to refuse Western investment. Many of these facilities have now returned to domestic control, as economic and political conditions have changed.
On Monday, February 18, 2008, the BBC World Service stopped shortwave transmissions to Europe. The notice stated, "Increasing numbers of people around the world are choosing to listen to radio on a range of other platforms including FM, satellite and online, with fewer listening on shortwave.
"
Pacific
Shortwave relays from Singapore (see Asia, above) continue, but historic relays via
ABC and
Radio New Zealand International were wound down in the late 1990s. The World Service is available as part of the
subscription Digital Air package (available from
Foxtel and
Austar) in
Australia.
ABC NewsRadio,
SBS Radio, and various
community stations also broadcast many programmes. Many of these stations broadcast a straight feed during the midnight to dawn period. It is also available
free-to-air via
satellite service Optus Aurora.
In
Sydney,
Australia you can pick up a transmission of the service at 152.025 MHz
UK
The BBC World Service doesn't receive funding for broadcasts to the UK, and reliable mediumwave reception has traditionally only been possible in southeast England (see Europe, above). However, since the introduction of
digital broadcasting, the World Service's output has recently been made more widely available in the
UK — the service is now carried on
DAB,
Freeview,
Virgin Media and
Sky Digital.
After the British domestic radio station
BBC Radio 4 ceases broadcasting at 1am
British time, the World Service is broadcast on all its
frequencies overnight, including 198
kHz longwave which can be heard in parts of continental Europe.
Although the BBC said that shortwave transmissions for Western Europe have been ceased recently (as of March 2007), shortwave reception of 6195 and 9410 kHz, which might be aimed at Western Russia, used to be still possible for a few hours a day in the UK (sometimes, with high strength of signals). However, this has reportedly become impossible as the BBC said all the remained analogue shortwave transmissions to Europe had ceased as of February 2008. In a very few cases, 15400 kHz from the relay station in
Ascension Island still becomes listenable. In southeastern England, including London, 648 kHz medium-wave is also available.
Interval signals
The
interval signal of the BBC World Service in English were the
Bow Bells, a recording made in 1926. Introduced as a symbol of hope during the
Second World War, it was until recently used preceding many (though not all) English language broadcasts. Though for a few years in the 1970s,
Oranges and Lemons was used as the interval, the Bow Bells were soon reintroduced.
January 1941 saw the beginning of the
Morse code letter "
V" as an interval signal. The interval signal had several variations including
timpani, the first four notes of
Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (which coincide with the letter "V"), and electronic tones which until recently remained in use for some
Western European services. In other languages, the interval signal is three notes, pitched B-B-C. The use of interval signals on Shortwave broadcasts appears to have been abandoned recently.
The World Service's classic
signature tune Lillibullero used to be just before the top of many hours, followed by the
Greenwich Time Signal (five short and one long pips) and the hourly news. Modern trailers featuring a variety of international broadcasting centres sometimes replace Lillibullero entirely on themed weeks. Until fairly recently, the hourly sequence was preceded by the announcement "This is London" — it's now followed by a more promotional "Wherever you are, you're with the BBC" or "With world news every half hour, this is the BBC". More recently, Lillibulero has been relegated to only occasional use, and on the occasions it's played, only a shortened version is now used. It has been suggested (by World Service staff) that the reduction in the use of Lillibullero is firstly because of its background as a
Protestant marching song in
Northern Ireland and secondly as, in modern branding terms, it's somewhat out of step with a modern,
global news organisation.
However when asked why the BBC chose this Protestant ascendancy tune, they'd usually respond that (i) the decision was made by the transmission
engineers, who found it particularly audible through short wave mush, and anyway they (the BBC) knew it as a tune for the old
English song "There was an old woman tossed up in a blanket, 20 times as high as the moon".
GMT is announced on the hour on the English service, e. g. "13 hours
Greenwich Mean Time" is said at 1300 GMT. 0000 GMT is announced as "midnight Greenwich Mean Time". Sometimes, however, "Greenwich Mean Time" is abbreviated to GMT when the hour is announced.
News
The core feature of much World Service
scheduling is the news. This is almost always transmitted at one minute past the hour, where there's a five minute long bulletin, and on the half hour where there's a two minute summary. Sometimes these bulletins are separated from the programmes being transmitted, whilst at other times they're integral to the programme (such as with
World Briefing,
Newshour or
The World Today).
BBC breaking news policy
BBC
policy for breaking news has a priority list. With domestic news, the
correspondent first records a "generic minute" summary (for use by all stations and
channels) and then priority is to report on
Radio 5 Live, then on
BBC News and onto any other programmes that are on air. For
foreign news, first a "generic minute" is recorded, then reports are to World Service radio, then the
reporter talks to any other programmes that are on air.
Range of languages
History of BBC World Service Language Broadcasting Services (
sorted by language)
Further Information
Get more info on 'Bbc World Service'.
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