BBC WORLD SERVICE
Written evidence submitted by the BBC
World Service
Building Bridges in an Insecure World
PROGRESS AGAINST
THREE YEAR
PLAN 2003-06
Throughout 2003, BBC World Service continued
to strengthen its programming and audibility, and to respond speedily
and effectively to the increasingly complex events around the
globe.
Independent research indicates that the BBC
World Service is regarded as the most trusted and objective broadcaster
among its international radio competitors in almost all markets.
Taking use of radio and online as a whole, the
BBC World Service attracted almost as many weekly users as it
did in 2002-03. The estimated weekly radio audience fell slightly
to 146 million from 150 million in 2002-03 in an increasingly
competitive market.
BBC World Service was not immune to the global
decline in shortwave listening. A significant loss of short wave
listeners was only partially offset by the rise in listening via
FM, satellite and cable.
For the first time we have accurate figures
for online use globally. There are approximately 5 million online
users per week, and over 16 million each month. Research indicates
there is a limited overlap between radio listeners and online
users.
The international impact of the World Service
and Global News sites grew at a rapid rate. Monthly page impressions
rose from 228 million in March 2003 to over 279 million monthly
page impressions a year later.
The World Service is available in 139 capital
cities, and increasingly in clusters of key urban centres within
individual countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, large parts of Africa,
South America, USA and the Far East.
In the interactive sphere, we successfully launched
a number of major initiatives including Islam and the West (our
web-based discussion area in English and key Islamic languages),
a daily Arabic phone-in and a high profile weekly programme, Africa
Live, which aims to increase understanding of development issues.
Our landmark programme series in 2003 culminated
in a major HIV/Aids season, broadcast across all languages, and
involving key figures, including Kofi Annan, Head of UN AIDS Peter
Piot and UK development Secretary Hilary Benn. Kofi Annan paid
tribute to the season, describing it as "an enormous contribution
to raising awareness, understanding and debate around the world
[that] brought great credit to the BBC".
THE MIDDLE
EAST AND
THE ISLAMIC
WORLD
- Covering the Iraq conflict was the BBC's largest
ever news operation, involving enhanced programmes, newsgathering
and transmission resources across the BBC.
- Arabic was expanded to a 24x7 schedule; a new
Cairo production office was opened to enhance our presence on
the ground and we have hosted regular live programming from Baghdad
covering the latest developments and fostering debate.
- BBC World Service launched a highly successful
interactive phone-in programme in Arabic—the first of its
kind in the Arab world—which is generating great interest
and has enabled users from right across the Arab world to engage
in discussion and debate.
- The Arabic web operation continues to foster
debate and dialogue as part of our overall aim to increase interactivity
and involvement and last month it attracted more than 14 million
page impressions.
- Elsewhere in the Middle East, BBC World Service
secured FM relays for enhanced distribution in Dubai, Abu Dhabi
and northern Jordan BBC World Service have made good progress
in extending our reach into Iraq. In addition to Baghdad and Basra,
where BBC World Service is available on FM in Arabic and English,
it is broadcasting Arabic in Al Kut, Nasiriya and Al Amara. It
will shortly be on air in Kirkuk and Mosul.
AFGHANISTAN AND
IRAN
- We have strengthened our journalistic presence
in Afghanistan by opening a major office in Kabul and establishing
an extensive network of reporters throughout the country.
- We have launched a new targeted schedule of programming
(nine hours daily) in Pashto and Dari for Afghanistan incorporating
our special educational programmes. This has enabled our Farsi
programmes for Iran to be more tailored for their audience, as
they no longer have to focus heavily on Afghan news and events.
We are also broadcasting an hour a day in Uzbek, for Uzbek speakers
in Afghanistan.
- In Afghanistan, we are currently on air in FM
in 14 sites (including Kandahar via are broadcaster). BBC World
Service is now available on FM in Kabul, Mazar e Sherif, Bamian,
Jalalabad, Herat, Kandahar, Kunduz, Faizabad, Pol e Khomri, Maimana,
Shibirghan, Taloqan, Jabal os Sarai and Gardiz.
- Currently, BBC World Service continues to be
the leading international broadcaster in terms of reach and reputation,
with a weekly audience of 60% in Kabul. A national audience survey
is planned for 2005.
AFRICA
- The new interactive, high profile weekly programme
in English, Africa Live, continues to increase understanding
of vital development issues (everything from mental health and
alcohol abuse to homosexuality and education).
- BBC Afrique (for Francophone Africa) is running
a similar interactive programme every month, Afrique en Directe
(subjects covered in the past year include mixed marriages, the
Rwandan genocide, the "Brain drain", the Islamic headscarf
controversy, air safety, Aids, immigration and the crisis in Liberia).
- BBC World Service is now supporting on a permanent
basis the successful lifeline programming for the Great Lakes
region of Africa, including Rwanda, via Grant in Aid.
- Audibility has been improved by expanding our
FM presence and partnerships in Malawi, Equatorial Guinea, Zambia,
Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana,
Senegal, Chad.
- As a result of the Nigerian broadcasting authorities
implementing legislation to ban foreign broadcasts by local and
national stations in April 2004, the BBC partnership with Raypower—a
national radio station—is in abeyance. Discussions are continuing
with the Nigerian authorities to try and reverse this decision.
In the meantime, we have increased the frequency of our shortwave
broadcasts and advertised their presence in the Nigerian cities
where Raypower broadcasts.
- BBC World Service has continued to enhance newsgathering
across the continent by boosting our presence on the ground. In
addition to operations in Abuja and Nairobi, BBC World Service
plans to set up small studios in Kampala, Bujumbura, Dar es Salaam,
Kigali and Kinshasa.
LANDMARK SERIES
- There have been a number of major high profile
landmark series in English, reversioned into key languages. Recent
examples include the Future of the UN, a global season on Water,
and Pipeline Politics about oil, and 2003 culminated in the major
global season of programmes on HIV/Aids broadcast across all languages,
which made a great impact.
- The World Service's ability to make a difference
to people's lives was vividly demonstrated by the two week HIV/Aids
season across all 43 language services. The Executive Director
of the Global Fund, Professor Richard Feacham, described the initiative
as "probably the biggest, boldest and most impactful broadcasting
response to the global challenge of Aids yet mounted, which has
brought huge credit to the BBC around the world".
ONLINE DEVELOPMENT
- We continue to invest in improving interactivity
in English and other key languages including Arabic, developing
World Forums to promote engagement through interactivity and high
profile debate.
- We our continuing our ambitious pilot interactive
project on Islam and the West across our English, Arabic, Persian
and Urdu websites, giving people the opportunity to engage with
and debate the challenging issues and to question world leaders
and leading experts.
- In November/December, as part of the major WS
season, we launched significant interactive specials on HIV/Aids—in
all our major languages and English—raising and debating
the issue of Aids across the world from India (BBCHindi.com) to
Vietnam (BBCVietnamese.com), Russia (BBCRussian.com) and South
America (BBCMundo.com).
INCREASING COMPETITIVENESS
VIA FM
- We continue our efforts to expand the FM network
to new target capitals and major cities—In addition to developments
in the Arab world and Africa above, recent successes include Dushanbe,
Belgrade and Budapest, and a major expansion in Indonesia is under
way.
- Following in-depth strategic reviews of the key
markets of India and Russia, we are investing, where possible,
to improve audibility and to support rebroadcasting deals and
content enhancements for FM. In both cases, an enhanced FM and
medium wave presence is central to success to combat the drop
in shortwave listening.
DELIVERING AGAINST
TARGETS SET
IN SPENDING
REVIEW 2002
Performance against PSA targets
Information on awareness, reach, objectivity
and relevance—nationally and among key target audiences—against
major international competitors—target met
— In over 90% of markets, the WS has
scored the highest ratings for awareness, reach, objectivity and
relevance.
Global weekly audience—target not met
— In 2002-03, the WS maintained its
global weekly audience at 150 million, despite strong competition.
BBC World Service now has a weekly audience of 146 million. A
substantial rise in FM listening only partially offset a significant
drop in short wave listening.
Monthly online use—target met
— PSA target for March 2004, set in
2002-03, was 150 million monthly page impressions. This has been
considerably exceeded; the actual figure for March 2004 was 279
million page impressions. This equates to over 5 million weekly
users, or 16 million monthly users.
Level of interactive forums—target met
— PSA target is minimum 12 forums per
key language per quarter; each key language held at least 20 interactive
forms during 2003-04.
Short wave audibility—target not met
— PSA target for 2002-03 was met; 86%
of signals rated acceptable or better;
PSA target for 2003-04 of 86% was not met, but
83% of signals are now rated acceptable or better.
Capital cities with BBC World Service FM outlets—target
met.
— PSA target for March 2004 was 138
capitals. This has been exceeded at 139 capitals.
Building Bridges in an Insecure World—the
World Service's strategic priorities to 2008
Over the next three-year period, while looking
hard at our existing resources, we will focus on two key areas
of investment. The extent of these new initiatives will depend
on the level of new funding secured in SR2004 for the years 2005-08.
(1) STRENGTHEN
OUR IMPACT
ACROSS THE
ISLAMIC WORLD
We propose to build our impact in the Middle East
and Gulf by:
— Creating a clearer news proposition
for audiences in Arabic, focusing on sharp, authoritative news
and analysis presented in a compelling, modern way, with more
live reporting and extended debate and discussion programmes.
— Bringing about a fundamental shift
to be "closer" to our audiences:
— Regional production centres located
in key locations Baghdad, Amman/Beirut, Dubai, Khartoum, and Rabat;
— Interactive programming seven
days a week, following the introduction of such formats during
the Iraq war;
— Localised FM delivery to improve
audibility;
— Separate programming for key
audiences at key times. A single Arabic Service programme cannot
serve such diverse audiences across multiple time zones.
We propose to build our impact within the wider
Islamic world by:
— Strengthening regional production
centres in other key Islamic countries including Islamabad, Dhaka,
Jakarta and Istanbul;
— Creating a network of Islamic affairs
analysts based in key regional centres;
— Creating a small dedicated London-based
Islamic Affairs unit to coordinate coverage.
We propose to develop a 24x7 Arabic television
service dedicated to news and information for the region
— After discussions about the growing
impact of regionally based satellite TV services in Arabic with
the FCO, we were asked to work up a proposition for a BBC Arabic
television service of news, information, discussion programmes
and documentaries, to be broadcast 24x7 across the Arab world,
and also to be made available in Europe and in the UK for Arabic
speakers.
— Details of the proposal for this
non-commercial service have been included in the SR2004 paper
"Building Bridges in an Insecure World" which is currently
under discussion with the FCO and HMT.
— The World Service has made it clear
that this proposition needs to be seen as a discrete proposal,
in addition to the other emerging needs of the World Service for
2005-08.
(2) MOVE CLOSER
TO OUR
AUDIENCES TO
CONNECT AND
EMPOWER THEM
Whilst the Islamic world is the key priority,
we must not neglect the ever growing needs of audiences elsewhere.
We propose to grow our role as the facilitator of a "global
conversation" across all media by:
— Launching flagship discussion programmes
with built-in interactivity in key languages;
— Building on our online investments
to give audiences ever more opportunity for feedback, dialogue
and communication, with us and with each other;
— Ensuring the accessibility of our
services across new platforms such as mobile phones.
We propose to strengthen our competitive position
and invest in local FM distribution in key markets as regulations
allow, including:
— The Arab world, particularly Egypt,
Saudi Arabia, and North Africa;
— The wider Islamic world, including
Pakistan and building on our presence in Afghanistan, Bangladesh
and Indonesia;
— In Africa, expanding partnerships
in key East and West African markets including Nigeria, Kenya
and Tanzania as they shift toward FM;
— Russia and India remain key priorities
for expanded local distribution, as does China. However, national
regulation is currently hampering our plans.
The financial framework
In addition to the new funding required for
the proposed initiatives outlined above, in the three-year period
the World Service will face rising costs in a number of areas.
These include RPI at 2.5%, increasing costs for news agency and
sports rights, talent retention, and increased contributions to
the BBC Pension Scheme.
Based on a strong record of financial efficiency,
we will fund all rising costs during the period through a combination
of efficiency savings and external income growth. This means that
any additional funding the World Service is awarded in the 2004
Spending Review will feed through fully to new front-line activity.
A strong record of efficiency savings
The World Service has a strong track record
of achieving challenging efficiency savings targets. Over the
past five years savings of 12.4% have been made. In addition,
since 2001-02, the average cost-per-hour of World Service programme
production across all language services has been reduced by 10%
in real terms, to around £1,500 per hour.
Aspiring to the same goals as the Gershon review
of efficiency in public services, we are well advanced in improving
the efficiency of our "back-office" operations and ensuring
that the vast majority of the Grant-in-Aid is spent on front-line
operations. The proportion of expenditure spent directly on programmes
has steadily increased in recent years. It now stands at 90%,
the highest level anywhere in the whole BBC.
Reprioritisation: further steps underway
The World Service is a dynamic and ever-changing
organisation in which reprioritisation of expenditure is always
taking place, as the organisation adjusts to changing strategic
priorities. Overall, we are targeting the reprioritisation of
over 5% of baseline Grant-in-Aid by the end of the three year
period. Some of the major initiatives already ongoing include:
Changes to the service portfolio—we continually
scrutinise all our activities to ensure they represent strategic
value for money;
The move to digital production—the transformation
of our technology and processes are enabling more effective deployment
of production resources;
Investment in new media—through proactively
reprioritising budgets, we have supplemented the funding received
for new media activities and achieved major impact online;
This dynamic redistribution of resources will
continue during the 2004 Spending Review period.
Efficiency savings
Throughout this Spending Review period the World
Service will continue to aggressively pursue a programme of reprioritisation
and efficiency savings. We are committed to achieving further
efficiency savings of at least 2.5% on baselines throughout the
2004 Spending Review period, in order to fully fund all rising
costs. In particular, an in-depth review of our short wave transmission
activities will yield a cumulative £10 million of savings
per annum by 2007-08. Combined with continuing to drive further
efficiency savings out of production areas, this will enable us
to achieve new annual savings of £7 million in each of 2006-07
and 2007-08—the equivalent of expected rising costs for
each of these years.
Income growth
We will energetically exploit new revenue streams
to increase external income either in cash or as a benefit in
kind. In particular, we will seek to maximise such contributions
to support distribution and delivery costs in rebroadcasting and
online. The BBC World Service Trust will continue to build brand
recognition for the BBC across the world, at no cost to Grant-in-Aid.
The Trust's income from external donors is planned to increase
from £10.2 million in 2003-04 to more than £15 million
by 2007-08.
Financial framework: Net funding requirements
An increase in the Grant in Aid over the three
years 2005-08 of £2.2 million, £17.4 million and £31.7
million in operating expenditure is sought to finance new investments
and ensure the BBC World Service remains the world's best known
and most respected voice in international broadcasting. In addition,
£28.5 million per annum is needed to fund a 24x7 BBC Arabic
television proposition, alluded to earlier in the document.
|
| New investment plans | 2005-06
£ million
| 2006-07
£ million
| 2007-08
£ million
|
|
| Islamic world | |
| |
| —Arabic radio and online | 2.2*
| 5.6 | 8.5
|
| —Wider Islamic world | 0
| 3.1 | 5.9
|
| Moving closer to audiences |
| | |
| —Promoting a Global Conversation |
0 | 4.2
| 8.4 |
| —Strengthening local FM distribution |
0 | 4.5
| 8.9 |
| Operating funds requested | 2.2
| 17.4 | 31.7
|
| Proposed BBC Arabiya Television News Channel
| 28.5 | 28.5
| 28.5 |
| Less: Reduction in Arabic radio and online if funding awarded for BBC Arabiya**
| (1.1) | (2.8)
| (4.2) |
| Operating funds requested in addition to existing operating baseline
| 29.6 | 43.1
| 56.0 |
|
* Gross new investment of £3.2 million, less a £1
million improvement in the World Service's previously agreed self-help
plan for 2005-06.
** If funding for an Arabic TV servide is awarded in 2005-06,
only 50% of the funding for Arabic radio and online will be required
as synergies from the television investment will reduce the new
investment requirements.
BRINGING BENEFIT
TO BRITAIN
We clearly recognise that this plan and the strategic priorities
highlighted must be related clearly to key outcomes. By 2008,
in agreement with the FCO, the investments outlined in this document
will deliver the following global benefits:
— The highest ratings among international radio
broadcasters for awareness, objectivity and relevance
of news content among all audiences and among target audience
groups, in particular cosmopolitans, measured through independent
annual surveys in key markets.
— The highest reach of all international
radio broadcasters in priority markets among target audience groups,
in particular cosmopolitans, proven through independent annual
surveys in key markets.
— Maintaining the global World Service radio
audience at 150 million listeners per week or at the highest
level achieved in the current three-year period. At present, our
global audience is at a near-record level in a world of exploding
competition around the globe.
— Growing global World Service online traffic levels
to 400 million monthly page impressions by 2008, and to 25 million
monthly unique users.
— Becoming distinctively recognised as the leading
global radio and online forum for debate compared to other international
broadcasters, measured through high ratings for awareness of
and engagement in our interactive services, in annual
surveys.
— Presence on FM across the world in at least 150
capitals (75% of the global total) by 2008 and an expanded
presence in critical markets.
In addition, the BBC World Service will deliver significantly
enhanced impact specifically in the Middle East:
— Growing our Arabic radio audience by 50% to 18
million weekly listeners.
— Tripling the usage of BBCArabic.com to 2 million
monthly unique user.
— For a new BBC Arabic TV channel, achieving the
highest reach of any internationally funded news television broadcaster
in the Middle East—overall and among target audiences.
— Achieving the highest ratings for awareness, objectivity
and relevance among all global news broadcasters in the Middle
East—among audiences overall and among target audiences
of opinion formers and decision makers.
|
