More people turning to BBC global news services

Today is a day of international celebration at the BBC – and no, it has nothing to do with football.

The BBC’s global news services have had their most successful year ever. Today we’ve published figures showing an incredible 265 million people a week are tuning into BBC World News, BBC World Service or bbc.com/news, an increase of 9m people since last year.

Despite cuts and savings audiences are increasingly turning to the BBC, because they trust us.

Of course audience habits are changing. And although radio is still the mainstay of the World Service - and indeed the main way people access BBC news worldwide - TV news is hot on its heels.

Our international English TV news channel, BBC World News, which relaunched at the beginning of last year, has gained 5m more viewers, taking its audience to 76m.

The new World Service TV bulletins shown on partner channels in seven different languages are pulling in millions of viewers.

Digital too has become a strong growth area for us, increasing by 21% since last year. All of our 27 World Service language websites are now available in responsive design, and we are the world’s most retweeted news brand.

But we can go further, and faster, if we want to reach the half a billion audience target which the BBC’s Director General Tony Hall set the BBC's international services. Howard Stringer's report published earlier this year suggested quite a few new directions.

Whatever we do we need to get better at measuring our social media impact, which we'll be exploring over the next year.

Amidst all the changes, just as striking is what stays constant. The BBC remains the world’s most trusted news brand. One of the more arresting statistics is that audience figures in Russia this year have more than doubled, and World Service audiences in Ukraine have trebled, as people in these countries in crisis flock to the BBC as a trusted source of news.

We have always prided ourselves on our editorial independence and our impartiality and the need for this is as acute as ever.

The other important constant is the sheer quality of our journalism.

Whether it was Anne Soy’s dramatic broadcast from the Nairobi mall siege, Nomsa Maseko’s electrifying commentary on what Nelson Mandela meant to South Africans, Lyse Doucet’s tireless reporting on the human face of war in Syria, or Olexiy Solohubenko’s informed summaries of the Ukrainian crisis, this year has shown the World Service Group’s journalism at its very best – and shown them to wider audiences, as World Service reporters now regularly feature on domestic news bulletins.

Sadly it is still vital for us to champion media freedom. Our international services are still subject to blocking and jamming, most recently from Ethiopia. Following the recent coup in Thailand, BBC World News, along with other international broadcasters, was taken off air.

As he welcomed the World Service ‘back home’ to the BBC earlier this year when it came back into licence fee funding, BBC Director General Tony Hall called it ‘the best of Britain’. Today’s figures suggest our audiences agree.

Liliane Landor is Acting Director of the World Service Group.