London’s Financial Times newspaper reports that BBC World Service is to join forces with international commercial broadcaster Viacom to launch the first pan-African radio campaign aimed at combating HIV/AIDS.
BBC World Service – a member of the AIB – is to produce anti-AIDS radio messages in seven African languages. The station’s audience in Africa is around 60m people.
The development follows a reported approach by Viacom – the company that owns MTV, CBS TV and Paramount Pictures – to the BBC. Viacom is to jointly fund the programming in association with the American health charity, the Kaiser Foundation.