In an presentation to staff this morning (January 26), BBC World Service
director Peter Horrocks gave details of significant cuts to the output of BBC
World Service, the publicly-funded international broadcaster.
The cuts follow a 16% budget cut in World Service funding from Britain’s
Foreign & Commonwealth Office in the Comprehensive Spending Review announced in
October 2010. BBC World Service has been funded by the UK government for many
years but in a new move from 2014, the BBC – Britain’s national public
broadcaster, funded by the TV licence paid by all TV-watching households – will
assume financial responsibility for the international operation.
Horrocks announced closure of five services: Albanian, Macedonia, Serbian,
Portuguese for Africa and English for the Caribbean. Radio broadcasting will
cease in Russian, Ukrainian, Mandarin, Turkish, Vietnamese, Azeri and Spanish
(for Cuba), although these languages will retain an online presence and delivery
via platforms such as partner (affiliate) stations and mobile. Shortwave
transmissions will reduce at the end of March by a significant amount. Shortwave
in Hindi, Indonesian, Kyrgyz, Nepali and Swahili will end, and a service to the
Great Lakes region of Africa will also lose short wave.
Cuts will also affect Arabic- and Persian-language TV output while radio
output in these languages will also be reduced.
In English services, programmes will be cancelled and editorial posts lost.
Overall, there will be staff cuts amounting to a little under one quarter of
the total World Service staff.
AIB members will receive an initial analysis of the cuts and new plans
announced by the World Service during the course of the afternoon (Wednesday 26
January).