Arguments for the World Service: hard news and soft power
Andrew Whitehead
is a lecturer, freelance writer and former news journalist
Andrew Whitehead is a former editor of BBC World Service News. He offers his view of the various cases being made for the World Service:
The most difficult argument for the World Service is the one James Harding turned to first when launching his Future of Newsreport earlier this year: that it is “an ambassador of Britain’s values and an agent of soft power in the world”.
The World Service began as the BBC Empire Service in 1932 - at a time when, in much of that empire, the UK’s power was anything but soft. The big expansion in the number of foreign-language services came during the World War Two, and many found renewed purpose during the Cold War.
The reinventing of the World Service, from an adjunct of UK foreign and war policy to an independent, impartial and trusted provider of news, is a story that has not been fully told or appreciated. The argument that respect for, and the reach of, the BBC World Service brings benefits to the UK is unexceptional - and is reinforced by concern that China and Russia are now spending far more on their global channels than the BBC (according the report of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee last year). But if that extends to presenting the primary purpose of the World Service as exercising soft power for the UK as an informal aspect of UK diplomacy then, in my view, a line has been crossed.
The main purpose of the World Service is to meet a demonstrable need for impartial, authoritative and engaging news of what’s happening around the world. If that is diluted, even if simply to help make a case in Westminster and Whitehall, there is a risk of damaging the trust which is the basis of the service’s reputation and reach.
The most compelling case for the World Service is its continued success in attracting audiences. Across the world, one in every 16 adults uses the BBC. Two-thirds of that global reach comes from the World Service. It’s what makes the BBC a global rather than a parochial broadcaster and what sustains the BBC as a universal brand.
BBC World Service English is by far the BBC’s biggest radio network. According to the 2015 Global Audience Measure, more than 50 million listeners tune in to its programmes and news bulletins every week. The BBC has been in dread of a precipitate fall in global radio audiences. It has not happened. Indeed, the latest figures indicate an impressive year-on-year increase in audience of almost a quarter.
The gradual fall-off in shortwave listening has been more than matched by increasing audiences to FM relays in major cities and by World Service content being carried on hundreds of partner stations which dip into BBC output for part of the day. Half the total English audience is in Africa. Half of the rest is in the United States, where public radio pays (not a huge sum, but in total several million dollars a year) for the right to rebroadcast flagship programmes such as Newshour.
Although only 4 per cent of the audience for the English World Service is in the UK - split roughly equally between those listening on digital audio and in the night hours on Radio 4 frequencies - that still delivers a reach of more than two million, which is about the same audience size as Radio 3. It’s a powerful reaffirmation of the direct value of the World Service to licence fee payers.
The funding of the World Service through the licence fee strengthens the BBC’s hand in negotiations about a new charter. In the words of The Economist last year, “While the World Service remains a national treasure, it is also a valuable ransom.”
The BBC’s case for charter renewal is likely to argue that only a sufficient overall settlement will allow the World Service to thrive and, in particular, implement some of the recommendations put forward by Sir Howard Stringer, former president and CEO of Sony and a non-executive director on the BBC’s executive board, about how to reach the half-billion audience target the service has been set by the BBC.
Over the past few years the World Service has avoided the prospect of death by a thousand cuts by innovation and new investment, as well as a pursuit of greater efficiency. If you measure success by size of audience, the standard benchmark for broadcasters, it has worked handsomely. That success offers the BBC the opportunity of remaining a vital force in international news at a time of retrenchment.
The new form of funding for the World Service through the licence fee carries risks, and it remains possible that a smaller BBC will turn in on itself and focus narrowly on a public service remit in the UK.
That would be unwise. The harm it would inflict on the BBC’s global reputation, and so its ability to provide comprehensive news for domestic as well as international audiences, would be immense. As James Harding put it in reflecting on the enormous global goodwill the BBC enjoys: “The BBC is unique - the most trusted, responsible and reliable news source in the world - and our biggest job in the next 10 years is not to screw it up.”
This is an edited version of a chapter by Andrew Whitehead from a new book The BBC Today: Future Uncertain, edited by John Mair, Professor Richard Tait and Professor Richard Lance Keeble, and published by Abramis on 5 September.
A world of influence: BBC, al-Jazeera, RT, CCTV
