CORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 1107-i

HOUSE OF COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE THE

FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

 

BBC WORLD SERVICE

WEDNESDAY 4 NOVEMBER 2009

PETER HORROCKS, RICHARD THOMAS and BEHROUZ AFAGH

 

Evidence heard in Public

Questions 1 - 65

 

 

Oral Evidence

Taken before the Foreign Affairs Committee

on Wednesday 4 November 2009

Members present:

Mike Gapes (Chairman)

Sir Menzies Campbell

Mr. Fabian Hamilton

Mr. Eric Illsley

Andrew Mackinlay

Sir John Stanley

 

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Peter Horrocks, Director, Richard Thomas, Chief Operating Officer, and Behrouz Afagh, Head of Asia Pacific Region, BBC World Service, gave evidence.

 

Q1 Chairman: I think our new witnesses were sitting in at the end of the last session. Mr. Horrocks, this is your first time before our Committee since your recent appointment. We formally congratulate you on your new role. Mr. Thomas, I think you have been before. Have you, Mr. Afagh? No, you're new, so welcome. Perhaps you could introduce yourselves for the record, please.

Peter Horrocks: I am the director of the BBC World Service. On my right are my colleague Richard Thomas, who is the chief operating officer for BBC Global News and has financial leadership for BBC World Service, and Behrouz Afagh, who is the regional editorial head for the Asia-Pacific region. I particularly asked Behrouz to be here today because of the significance of the launch of the Persian television service in the course of the year.

 

Q2 Chairman: Thank you. We will have some questions about that in a moment. May I begin by asking you a question about your online audience? Your targets have been exceeded by a very wide margin, and that is obviously really encouraging. What is your main focus of work for the future in that area?

Peter Horrocks: I suppose our main focus is to develop our skills in delivering that journalism and to develop a different kind of journalism that goes with the online world, which is much more of a two-way engagement with audiences than traditional broadcast media, which are about just pushing information and news out there. The development of our online journalism, which also feeds back into our broadcast journalism, is about a closer relationship with the audience and understanding its needs.

 

Q3 Chairman: May I ask you about BBC Arabic Television, which was launched a year and a half ago? We lobbied very strongly for additional funding from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office so that the service could have a bigger footprint in terms of hours of broadcasting. Your target was 7 million viewers for BBC World TV in Arabic, and 18 million users a week for BBC services overall. Have you achieved those targets, and have you got any research on what the impact has been?

Peter Horrocks: We have achieved those targets, but we don't yet have a complete picture because the Arab world is obviously a very extensive one. We have some further research in the field. It is important to note that our future targets are very high. We have a television target of 25 million, and a target of 35 million across the three platforms-radio, television and online. I believe that we have established the television service with real credibility, with proper BBC impartial values, but we are facing significant competition from a number of commercial television news providers, notably al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya, which are well established. So we have a lot of further creative work to do, but we certainly feel that we have established that foothold in the market.

 

Q4 Chairman: Have you been taking audiences from them, or is there a general increase in the audience for television in the Arab world?

Peter Horrocks: It's hard to know whether they have directly transferred. I think many audiences do not consume just one channel. We know from our research that al-Jazeera is still the market leader, but quite often people will look at al-Jazeera or al-Arabiya, for example, and if a big news story has happened they will turn to the BBC to get an alternative perspective-perhaps a broader one-than some of those channels might provide.

 

Q5 Chairman: How would you assess the reputation of BBC Arabic among its audiences?

Peter Horrocks: The BBC Trust conducted some independent research into that as part of its regulatory function, and carried out audience research that examined audiences' views of impartiality, accuracy, reputation and so on, which all showed positive scores. We also know that particularly during the Gaza crisis audiences turned to us in significant numbers, and we can measure that through the online traffic, the engagement, questions to our interactive forums and so on. We know, through some specific research that was done within both the West Bank and Gaza after that conflict, that the service was very widely used.

Chairman: It would be helpful if you could make some of that information available to us for when we produce our report, if you have it available.

 

Q6 Sir John Stanley: Mr. Horrocks, if the test of the effectiveness of the BBC World Service is the amount of uncomplimentary comments you get from your host Governments, BBC Persian is doing brilliantly in Iran. Could you tell us what your current figures for viewers on BBC Persian are?

Peter Horrocks: We have only incomplete information, and I'm afraid audience research in Iran in these circumstances is a rather difficult activity to carry out. We need to do it through telephone calls from abroad. But Mr. Afagh is more directly involved in that, and can perhaps explain how we intend to do it and the information that we hope to be able to have.

 

Q7 Sir John Stanley: Can you give us your best ballpark assessment of your viewing figures for BBC Persian?

Peter Horrocks: I wouldn't want to put a figure on it. We had some figures about awareness in the Tehran area, which came from a telephone survey done immediately after launch. It showed a high level of awareness, but to give an accurate estimate of the audience is currently difficult, although that is exactly what we are about to do. We also thought it would be unfair to do it immediately on the launch, because the broader publicity around it might affect people's perceptions. Now that it has settled down, it is the right time to do that research. We shall be doing that in time for the next World Service annual review and we will be reporting a figure, although it will have to be a pretty broad estimate.

 

Q8 Sir John Stanley: You did have an actual target. You had a stated target of 3 million viewers.

Peter Horrocks: Yes. I would be very surprised if we had not achieved that, given the kind of reaction that we have had from audiences and, as you said, from the reaction of the Government themselves.

Sir John Stanley: I think that the Committee would want to know your best judgment as to whether you are achieving your target before this particular report is submitted to the House.

Peter Horrocks: It is hard to be certain about it and I cannot point you to direct evidence to back it up, but I would say that I am confident that we are meeting our target. We will be able to put a more precise measure on it when we have conducted the survey.

Sir John Stanley: You are confident that you are meeting the 3 million.

Peter Horrocks: Yes, I am.

 

Q9 Sir John Stanley: Right. What is your figure for total access, including online-or for just online separately, if you want to do it that way?

Peter Horrocks: Online is only a small contribution. The radio audience is much more significant than the online audience.

 

Q10 Sir John Stanley: So, total viewing and listenership-what do you put that figure at?

Peter Horrocks: I would put that in the order of 5 million; something of that nature.

 

Q11 Sir John Stanley: You had a target initially of 10 million, didn't you?

Peter Horrocks: Yes.

Sir John Stanley: So you are some way below that at the moment.

Peter Horrocks: We are, but we haven't done the research yet to be able to be certain about the television audience. There is a potential audience of over 100 million people who speak Farsi, so it could easily be in excess of that figure, but I do not want to commit to a figure until we have done the research, because that would just be guessing, which would be the wrong thing to do.

 

Q12 Sir John Stanley: If there is any further information that you can give us on the total access-radio, television, online-in relation to your 10 million target before this report is closed, that would be very helpful.

What are your current hours on BBC Persian TV?

Peter Horrocks: Can I turn to Mr. Afagh, whose responsibility it is?

Behrouz Afagh: Perhaps I can explain that the 10 million figure that you mentioned is our target to reach within three years, and we are about 10 months after the launch.

At the moment our television programmes are going out to Iran from 5 o'clock in the afternoon until 1 o'clock in the morning local time, which are the peak hours. We are broadcasting eight hours a day within those hours.

 

Q13 Sir John Stanley: Are you seeking to expand that? We understand that you want to do that-have you got funding in place? What are your plans for the expansion?

Peter Horrocks: The approach that we have taken is that we extended it during the immediate crisis following the disputed election, and provided more hours in that period. We have reverted back to the original eight hours, and we are considering extending those hours as part of the wider reprioritisation that we are currently considering across our whole strategy-looking against other priorities and other services that we may wish to launch. We will look at the effectiveness of extending those hours. There may be ways in which we can do it in quite a cost-effective way, by repeating some of the programmes from the main part of the schedule and having short news updates-we are looking to do that in a cost-effective way-but we have not yet decided whether to commit to that, partly because of the uncertainty about resources more broadly.

 

Q14 Sir John Stanley: Again, if you have any further information on translating your possible expansion plans into reality before we finish the report, it would be very helpful to have it.

Can you tell us what degree of deliberate disruption you are being exposed to from the Iranian authorities?

Peter Horrocks: That happens in two ways, one of which is the disruption to BBC's journalism on the ground. The BBC World Service and the Persian team itself were never allowed to have journalists in Iran, but the BBC News correspondent, Jon Leyne, was thrown out of the country in the immediate aftermath of the disputed election, so we no longer have direct journalistic resource on the ground.

In terms of the television service in the weeks after the election, we were subject to concerted satellite jamming with signals being sent from within Iran up to the satellite, which was beaming our signal down, and that took our broadcasters and a number of other broadcasters off the air. We purchased satellite space on alternative satellites with different angles into the country and our viewers needed to readjust their satellite dishes to get our signals, so we were able to continue broadcasting for people to receive our signal. When the protests on the streets died down, the jamming declined and we have been able to revert to some of our original broadcasting.

 

Q15 Sir John Stanley: Just following on from what you said about sadly not being able to have anyone on the ground at the moment, how far is that constraining you from getting a fully objective, factually accurate account of what is going on there as best you can? Is it making you unduly dependent on what you are getting from, say, exiled sources out of the country who may lack a degree of objectivity?

Peter Horrocks: It is clearly not ideal. First-hand reporting is absolutely at the centre of what the BBC tries to offer, wherever it is possible. There are agencies still operating there, which provide stories in both text and video on which the western agencies can rely, and we receive both information and pictures on video from our audiences. That plays a more important part in all of our programming across a range of services than it used to. We need to treat it with care and, clearly, it comes generally from one side of the argument.

Both Mr. Afagh and I have stressed to the editorial team the importance of maintaining the impartiality of the service through this period, and we continually invite all ranges of opinion in Iran on to the programming. It has been notable that it has been a place where a wide range of people-not only people in opposition or reformist movements-have appeared and given their views. We have a real commitment to making sure that it covers a broad range of views in Iran. That is important for our own principles, as it is for the credibility of the service within the country.

 

Q16 Sir John Stanley: Iran has a very high percentage of internet usage. Is it relatively easy for individuals to be able to feed information to you? Are they putting themselves to a degree of risk? How far are you getting worthwhile information from that particular source?

Peter Horrocks: They do, and people take risks. There was some throttling of the internet capacity at the height of the protests when bandwidth was controlled by the Government both to stop information getting out and information getting in, but that is now behind us. Some members of the audience choose to comment anonymously. As you can understand, there are good reasons for doing that. But other people do appear and give their names. They take part in our interactive programmes. They send us a text message. We phone them back and they will contribute. A number of people are prepared to contribute and give their names.

Sir John Stanley: Brave people. Thank you very much.

 

Q17 Mr. Hamilton: Before we move on from Iran and the Persian language Service, I want to say how very pleased I was to be able to support its launch in January. The Committee has been very supportive of what has been done successfully. I wonder whether at any kind of high level, our Government and the Foreign Office have received protests from the Iranian Government over the Persian language TV service. Have you received anything formal or official from the Iranian Government?

Peter Horrocks: I do not think that we have had formal protests. It is just through commentary in the newspapers, statements from Ministers and so on that are publicly reported. Every other day there is a commentary in Iranian newspapers about the international media, and they usually refer prominently to the BBC Persian service as part of that. I am not aware of any formal protests.

Behrouz Afagh: I am not aware of any either.

 

Q18 Mr. Hamilton: Do the Americans do a similar service or are we the only western country that broadcasts in Persian?

Behrouz Afagh: They do. The Voice of America has been broadcasting television programmes to Iran for a long time. It comes under criticism from the authorities in Iran as well, but the BBC is singled out more, largely because it is new and it seems to have attracted a very large audience, particularly among the youth. There have been special Iranian parliamentary reports and reviews of the impact of the BBC and hardly a day goes by without some kind of big analytical piece in the Iranian press, or comments from authorities.

Really, to summarise, they are mostly suspicious of the BBC's or UK's intentions, but they are all saying that the production and editorial quality is very high, and that, particularly with the young audiences, the Iranian state media need to do something to compete. There's even been a big debate about allowing private channels to start in Iran, since the launch of the BBC. So although all western media-particularly in Persian-in Iran come under criticism as part of the suspicion that they have, the BBC is singled out, usually.

 

Q19 Mr. Hamilton: Is it still the case that you have the highest number of hits on the BBC website on the Persian language service? I remember a few years ago being told that of all the worldwide BBC services the Persian language had by far the most.

Behrouz Afagh: It is still among the highest, but I think now sometimes Urdu sites or Brazilian sites get larger hits, but it's certainly one of the top.

Mr. Hamilton: I have to say I was very impressed when you invited me to do an interview and I had the simultaneous translation in the earpiece, and I had the interviewer interviewing me in Farsi, and then the English was simultaneously translated over the air. It was very good.

Chairman: If we can move on. Ming Campbell, still on Iran.

 

Q20 Sir Menzies Campbell: Can you tell us a bit about the content of Persian television between 5 pm and 1 am? Do you seek to target certain segments of a potential audience? We know that in Iran a very large proportion of the population are what one might describe as being young, so are the programmes designed for the purpose of targeting that potential segment of audience?

Behrouz Afagh: I would say the backbone of the programming is obviously news and current affairs analysis, but it's a broad agenda and we do run a large number of other programmes: the best of factual programming, programmes about technology and IT, culture, and a daily programme, which is very popular now, which is interactive. This is people from inside Iran and abroad ringing in and discussing topical issues-political and social. Every day there is a topic and people ring, and sometimes we get up to about 1,000 people ringing in or sending messages, wanting to take part in the programme. So that's proving very popular.

We do show some of the best of the BBC documentaries, and we are showcasing some of the best of the Iranian documentary makers, from Iran, which is another very popular programme. So by and large it is news and factual-news is the backbone-but it's a wider agenda. I would say, yes, you are absolutely right that the bulk of the Iranian population are young, and they're very connected, and very keen to connect to the rest of the world, and the programme-the content, the look and feel, the whole approach, the tone and the presentation-is very youthful.

 

Q21 Sir Menzies Campbell: What about entertainment or sport? Are there programmes of that description?

Behrouz Afagh: Yes, we do have sport.

 

Q22 Sir Menzies Campbell: "Match of the Day"?

Behrouz Afagh: Unfortunately, we can't have the rights for "Match of the Day", but we do cover a wide range of sports programmes, and sport is very popular. We do actually make a point of trying to get particularly women's sports, which are quite popular in Iran, but they don't get much chance of watching them.

 

Q23 Sir Menzies Campbell: And entertainment? "EastEnders"?

Behrouz Afagh: Not "EastEnders", I'm afraid, but we are very conscious of having entertainment programmes-music programmes, cultural programmes. We try to make the programmes engaging and entertaining-even the most serious programmes.

 

Q24 Sir Menzies Campbell: The information gathering, which you are going to embark upon: will that be able to identify audience segments by age, socio-economic grouping-things of that kind? Will it be as sophisticated as that?

Peter Horrocks: We'll do it by telephone-based market research from another country-the calls will be made into Iran. So we're using a classic telephone-based survey methodology. The only thing is who is prepared to answer the phone and who speaks to us. You have to make some allowances for that but we think it will give us a pretty robust picture and we'll get that information to the Committee as soon as it's available.

 

Q25 Chairman: Mr. Horrocks, you referred to a potential audience of 100 million, I think. That presumably includes people in Afghanistan.

Peter Horrocks: It does, yes.

 

Q26 Chairman: Have you got any information about audience figures for Afghanistan?

Peter Horrocks: I don't think we do specifically. That would be part of this.

Behrouz Afagh: Do you mean for Persian television or generally?

Chairman: For Persian language generally but for the television, too, if it is possible.

Behrouz Afagh: I'll give you our total radio audience in Afghanistan, which is a combination of Pashto as well as Farsi Dari: it is about 10 million. These figures are from 2008. We are due to do another survey in Afghanistan. So it is quite large. We haven't yet been able to measure the impact of Persian television in Afghanistan.

 

Q27 Chairman: It can be picked up, can it?

Behrouz Afagh: It can.

Peter Horrocks: By those with a satellite dish. Mr. Afagh and I were recently in Afghanistan looking at how we might be able to extend that broadcasting and create more content that is specifically for Afghanistan, for Farsi speakers within Afghanistan.

 

Q28 Chairman: Have you done any programmes about the Afghan election?

Behrouz Afagh: Oh yes. Very much so. We had special coverage of the Afghan election. We had a big team there. We have a very strong presence in Kabul and throughout Afghanistan. We have television correspondents there. In fact, out of our five main news presenters on the Persian channel, two are Afghans.

Chairman: That's very useful. Thank you very much. If you could send us any more information about that it would be very helpful.

 

Q29 Andrew Mackinlay: On the Americas, let us start south and move north. You intend to leave a post vacant in Buenos Aires, which doesn't give any cover for the Falkland Islands. Brazil is going to be a bit patchy. I think São Paulo is closing. Mexico is a bit lean, despite its importance with regard to drugs, democracy and so on. I don't know whether this is part of something here. I am reading from a document on the plan to deliver creative future savings, which was outlined two years ago. Can you tell us about that? These are critical areas, aren't they? I said Argentina, Falklands and Brazil, which is a big player, with the World Cup, and other things I don't understand, sporting activities, and Mexico is critical.

Peter Horrocks: I think you're describing some of the recently announced BBC News news-gathering savings in that part of the world. I think they are accurate. But it doesn't mean that the BBC is not covering those countries or that it doesn't have reporters in those countries. There are two ways in which the BBC covers the world internationally. One is the correspondents and the bureaux that are funded from the licence fee, through BBC News, and the second are the correspondents who work for the BBC World Service language services. So we still have teams working for BBC Brazil-the Portuguese service for Brazil-and also for BBC Mundo, the Spanish service for the whole of Latin America. So by those correspondents filing in English as well as in either Spanish or for Brazil, we're able still to cover those countries. Indeed, we will be using journalists who are from that part of the world who are covering those stories. That is the way the savings that have been made because of licence fee savings, which is what the delivering a creative future programme is about, can be offset or allowed for by the World Service correspondents working more broadly. That is one of the important organisational changes that I've been trying to lead. By the World Service language teams and the English news teams working more closely together, we can cover the world effectively but in a cost-effective manner.

 

Q30 Andrew Mackinlay: I would like to come to that blurring of the licence fee as distinct from the World Service grant money in a minute but can I just deal with the Argentine for a moment? That is going to be reduced to a freelancer, BBC-wise. He or she would set their own agenda. There is a world of difference between your own person and a freelancer. It seems to me a big slice of the world-and a not uncritical part of the world in terms of the Falklands and Argentinian aspirations, bearing in mind the memory, if you like, of the boat, the plumb lines sending all the wrong signals to the Argentine. Don't you think there is an impact here of not having somebody in Buenos Aires?

Peter Horrocks: As I say, there will be Spanish language correspondents who are covering this and broadcasting in English as well. They clearly know the story extremely well. We have been working very closely with BBC News and the World Service language teams on a plan to be able to do this. Obviously, it is part of a wider context of the licence fee being used as cost-effectively as possible.

 

Q31 Andrew Mackinlay: Okay. I fully understand that you have a duty to maximise scarce resources. I am not challenging that at all, but if we move up to New York there are 12 BBC people and I am not sure of the mix between taxpayers' news-gathering costs and BBC World Service. There is going to be a net reduction in New York and there might be a case for that, bearing in mind you are cutting in other critical parts of the world. Perhaps you could take us through this. What is licence-payer money and what is BBC World Service grant money from the FCO? I would not want the FCO money to be subsidising the licence payer's fee. There needs to be some transparency here.

Peter Horrocks: There does. There are careful auditing and fair trading arrangements around these. However, unlike many other international broadcast organisations-Voice of America would be a good example-which are not linked to a major domestic news organisation, the BBC has that advantage and so you have the World Service with the Foreign Office funding and BBC News with the licence fee funding. We organise those jointly and as effectively as possible, while still maintaining separate accountability. So the savings you refer to in New York are licence fee savings that BBC News is making. New York itself, from a World Service point of view, is not as important a priority as Washington because of its wider strategic significance. So from a World Service point of view I do not think that that change in New York creates particularly difficult issues about covering the world editorially. The UN correspondent post is being retained, which is obviously very important both for UK and international audiences.

 

Q32 Andrew Mackinlay: I agree. Please could you give the Committee a note explaining the separation and the costs between licence fee and the grant money to amplify what you have just said?

On Caversham, this is a BBC service that is wholly funded by the Government, so there is probably some security money in it from the various agencies, but I don't need to know that this afternoon. It is money paid through the BBC and you provide a monitoring service around the world. You are digesting stuff which is then fed into the FCO, the Ministry of Defence and our security and intelligence services and so on. Is there not a cutback in your capacity to do that work because of the reduction in your network of both licence fee and FCO-World Service grant money?

Peter Horrocks: Not because of that. There is an efficiency programme which BBC Monitoring, which is not my direct responsibility, is going through at the moment. The monitors-the people who monitor international broadcasts-are separate from the journalists whom you have been talking about, the correspondents who work for me and for BBC News. They work closely together and they often share offices, but they are different people doing different functions.

 

Q33 Andrew Mackinlay: So they share offices and work alongside each other physically?

Peter Horrocks: Yes.

Andrew Mackinlay: You have confirmed that it is not your business, which I fully understand, but perhaps this hearing should be BBC World Service and Caversham because this is food and drink to us. Perhaps your brethren at Caversham could give us a note on what is going on there please.

Chairman: Mr. Mackinlay, I think we can directly contact them because they produce their own report.

Andrew Mackinlay: But we are not having a hearing on them.

Chairman: We have never asked them. That is a matter for us, not for the World Service.

Andrew Mackinlay: Well, you tell them.

Chairman: It is certainly something that we should pursue as a Committee rather than expecting the World Service to do it for us.

 

Q34 Mr. Hamilton: Can I take up some of the other language services? I know that you have had a review of BBC Afrique and the Turkish language service with a view to perhaps cutting down the costs and improving the efficiency of the service delivery. I understand that you'll be cutting around 15 posts in London and are hoping to create 18 posts in Dakar and I understand that on the Turkish service you are developing a multi-media operation, which has been ongoing for a while, and you are closing down the shortwave radio service. Can you elaborate a little on the savings that will be made with both Afrique and the Turkish service and how these are justified? Have you managed to produce a more efficient service for less money and better output?

Peter Horrocks: Those two services provide illustrations of a couple of broader strategic themes for the World Service as a whole. One is the move of staff from London to particular locations. We describe that as, "being closer to the story". It also helps us in terms of cost-effectiveness, but the most important reason is obviously, in countries where it is possible and appropriate, and where our journalists would not come under undue pressure from Government interference, to do the journalism in the country and in the right time zone, to be able to see people, to pick up on contacts and to do proper first-hand journalism. It also happens to be a generally more cost-effective way of working.

In the case of the BBC Afrique service-the French for Africa service-one of the key ways that we are using that greater efficiency is to extend the hours of broadcasting, including some morning broadcasts, which we believe will pick up a larger audience and that is one of the main benefits of doing that.

The changes within the Turkish service are less to do with staff relocating and more to do with developing a multi-media service in conjunction with a partner station. We provide a weekly programme for our partner television station, which also happens to be our radio partner, in Turkey-NTV-and that has been very successful and our audience in Turkey has grown because of providing this high-quality BBC television programme. Being able to do that with a number of other countries with partners is something that we are exploring. The television services that we have launched up until now have been full channels delivered by satellite. A different and more cost-effective way of doing it is to create content and to deliver it through partners, which is the means that we use for a lot of our radio broadcasts around the world now. We are intending to develop that further for other television services in other languages.

 

Q35 Mr. Hamilton: Can you elaborate slightly on what a multi-media service is? I can make a guess. It is presumably a website together with radio and television, but is there anything else?

Peter Horrocks: Yes, it is simply that. We have online sites for nearly all of our languages now. We are creating online video for many of them so once you are doing that you are making a multi-media service. In the case of Turkey, we also happen to have a television partner so our video is delivered terrestrially to homes throughout Turkey, which it is a very effective way of reaching many people.

 

Q36 Mr. Illsley: Could I ask you about what progress you are making in relation to mobile telephone technology? I understand that BBC Arabic is proving very popular delivered to mobiles, and in Africa. Could you tell us a little bit more about that?

Peter Horrocks: Yes. I am sure that the Committee will be aware of the explosion in the number of mobiles that are owned around the world. In many parts of the world-Africa, India and China-the mobile is becoming more important than the PC as a way of getting on-demand content. We are currently going through a very rapid programme of developing mobile information services for all of our African languages and are trying to get that launched in time for the Africa Cup of Nations in January-Hausa, Swahili, Portuguese for Africa and a number of other African languages. We believe that that would be a very popular and cost-effective way of audiences consuming our content. We are working with our journalists to develop their skills so that, as well as being strong radio journalists, they can write strong, effective and brief text stories that will be very suitable for low-cost mobile delivery in places such as Africa.

 

Q37 Mr. Illsley: Given the speed at which the mobile market changes and improves, do you have any policies for the future and any further developments planned to actually follow this up?

Peter Horrocks: Our approach is very much along the lines of that multi-media approach I was discussing with Mr. Hamilton. Five years ago we were exclusively radio, and we are going through this very rapid change in which our journalists are being asked, instead of being a journalist working for one platform, to cover stories and create content for as many platforms as possible. We need to organise ourselves to allow that content to be produced cost-effectively and distributed in whatever way is appropriate to get it to audiences around the world. In advanced parts of the world people have advanced mobile phones on which they can listen to audio or watch video. That will start to happen in developing parts of the world quite rapidly, and we want to be ready to meet that need.

 

Q38 Mr. Illsley: I know that, in the past, as delivery has changed to different platforms you have discontinued traditional methods, for example short-wave radio. Is there any likelihood that in the near future mobile phone technology is going to replace some more traditional delivery methods?

Peter Horrocks: I think it will be supplementary. There will be parts of the world that are still very remote and where people rely on short-wave, and radio is still by far the bulk of the reach that the BBC World Service achieves, but we need to be ready for these new technologies taking off. There are some markets-Brazil would be a good example-where online delivery is now far more important than radio. We have reduced our radio services to a very small proportion of the activity, and you see the pattern across the world that, as markets develop more, television and online tend to take the place of radio, but radio is still hugely important. World Service English radio still has a massive reach of 40 million, and we have to maintain the quality of our radio services while also extending ourselves on to new platforms. That is one of the key challenges that we have to work through.

 

Q39 Chairman: I am afraid that we might have a vote that will disrupt us for 15 minutes, but hopefully we can make progress before then.

May I ask you about the situation with regard to China? I gather there was a relaxation before the Olympics, but subsequently things are quite difficult. I would be interested to hear the current position with regard to blockage of the BBC World Service news site, and about what is happening with regard to our journalists and with our partner organisations, which we understand have had BBC news content removed from their sites. Could you give us the current position? Is it significantly worse now than it was before the Olympics, or has it just gone back to where it was normally?

Peter Horrocks: It is as bad as it was, I'm afraid, but it is not appreciably different in all honesty. It did improve for that brief period, as you say. Just to explain for those who aren't as aware as you are, there are two BBC sites for China, one is a full news site which is comprehensively blocked by the very effective web blocking that the Chinese authorities use, and there is a second site largely delivering English teaching materials, which is very popular and is generally not blocked. It was the content of that second BBC site that a number of our partners were discouraged from hosting. We believe that was after a documentary that Kate Adie did on the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square. But not all our partners dropped the content; it was a discouragement rather than an instruction. That English language content is still reaching people in China, but the overall news service is not available. We are exploring new technologies that we might be able to use to get our content, including our news content, to audiences in China.

 

Q40 Chairman: Is this blocking enabled because of the collaboration of Google and certain other internet service provider sites, which are in effect working in cahoots with the Chinese Government?

Peter Horrocks: I don't think it's particularly about that, although I know that there has been some speculation about it. I think it's simply that the Chinese authorities are smart at doing this. They know the sites that they wish to block and block those specific named sites. A wide range of them are interfered with.

Chairman: I have had personal experience of being in Shanghai airport and being able to get on the Guardian site but not the BBC site. That was about four years ago.

Sir Menzies Campbell: What inference do you draw from that?

Chairman: None at all. It was pretty random.

 

Q41 Sir John Stanley: Can you just give us the current position on what the Russian authorities are doing to try to constrict you, jam you and disrupt your broadcasting?

Peter Horrocks: The main way in which we believe that the Russian authorities have made life more difficult for us relates to rebroadcasting through local FM stations-we had a number of arrangements in place a few years ago, then our partners for commercial reasons were not able to host the BBC's content any more. So, it is not about technological blocking but more about a political perspective and making it difficult for our radio content to get to audiences in Russia in the quality that people now expect their radio to be. We still deliver through short-wave and medium-wave, but audiences, once they have high-quality radio such as FM, don't typically tune to AM short-wave frequencies instead.

The website is not blocked at all. It is not like China. That is why we have put significant extra resource into our online presence in Russia. We believe that that has been a successful way of engaging a new audience in Russia. It has also happened to have a benefit for our radio programming, particularly our interactive radio programme, when people have come to the website and then taken part in our radio programmes in greater numbers, because of a stronger online presence.

 

Q42 Sir John Stanley: Do you have any means of overcoming the rebroadcasting problems that you have run into? I assume those problems were as a result of political pressure on your various partners to disconnect with the BBC. Are you trying to replace that FM rebroadcasting? Do you have any means of doing that?

Peter Horrocks: We do not, I am afraid. We continue to talk to our partners and, if the political situation relaxes, then of course we would want to be back on air as soon as possible but, short of that, certainly in terms of radio and online, there are no other ways to deliver our content to audiences in Russia unfortunately.

 

Q43 Sir John Stanley: Okay. What is your judgment as to the numbers of people that you are reaching in Russia at the moment?

Peter Horrocks: I am not sure that I have those figures with me. I can get some figures to you, but I don't think that I have them immediately to hand-if I find them in a second I'll let you know.

Sir John Stanley: If you can't, please let us have some figures, so that we can get some perspective on what sort of coverage you are getting.

Chairman: I am very sorry, we are going to have to break. I urge my colleagues, please do come back, because we have to get through some more questions. Thank you very much.

Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.

 

On resuming-

Q44 Chairman: Thank you very much for waiting. Apologies for the Division-that is out of our control.

Can I take you to Sri Lanka? I understand that your FM programming was suspended as a result of interference by the Sir Lankan Government and the pressure that they were putting on the national broadcaster. I should be interested to know when or whether you think that the services in Sri Lanka will be resumed.

Peter Horrocks: In our submission to the Committee, we thought at that stage that they were resuming, but they have not yet resumed. We have been in discussions with the relevant regulatory authorities in Sri Lanka and we hope to have our service back on the air by the end of the year. I think that that is a realistic time scale, but we are not yet back on the air.

 

Q45 Chairman: Is it a political problem?

Peter Horrocks: I believe it is. It is not something that is directly from the Government. It is through the regulatory authority. In the end, coming off air was a decision that the BBC took as opposed to being taken off the air directly by the Sri Lankan authorities, but that was because our signal was being interfered with in relation to specific editorial content. If there were particular stories that we were covering or particular people who we were interviewing, the signal would suddenly be cut or be interfered with. We decided that that was intolerable and decided to withdraw our service. The nature of the dialogue with the Sri Lankan authorities is more about giving us comfort that we can be back on the air without that kind of editorial interference.

 

Q46 Chairman: Was that interference in the English service, the Tamil service or the Sinhala service?

Peter Horrocks: It was both the Tamil and the Sinhala services. It was slightly more with the Tamil service, but it was with both. One of the important things about the BBC's coverage of the Sri Lanka story is that the Tamil and Sinhala teams work very closely together, right alongside each other, within Bush House. They each have a commitment to cover the story from all sides of the conflict, as opposed to taking as it were the language perspective of their particular listeners. That led to both those services being interfered with.

 

Q47 Chairman: It is obviously a matter of some concern. You say the end of the year. Do you have an absolute promise that that will happen?

Peter Horrocks: No. It is within Behrouz's region. I do not think that we have a commitment. Recently, we have had encouraging signals, but things have not got back on air yet. We hope that they will do shortly.

 

Q48 Chairman: Okay. We will no doubt take this matter further.

You were taken off the air in Rwanda. Was that the decision of the Rwandan Government or did you take that decision yourself?

Peter Horrocks: No, it was the Rwandan Government.

 

Q49 Chairman: That was because they said that you broadcast material denying genocide. Is that correct?

Peter Horrocks: That is what they said. We did not agree with that interpretation. Clearly, Rwanda is a country where the scars of the recent past are very deep, and where the use of language and how it is interpreted is a matter of real controversy so we listen very hard and take very seriously the Rwandan Government's concerns. However, we thought that the extent of their reaction was an over-reaction. We certainly shouldn't have come off the air. We were also disappointed that at that period the Rwandan Government decided no longer to provide interviews with the Great Lakes service, the service that was set up after the massacres. That made it even harder to do properly balanced coverage. We're pleased to say that the Rwandan Government are now offering interviews again to our service and we're trying to re-establish confidence, and to make sure that we're covering the story as fairly as we feel we need to, but reflecting the Rwandan Government's perspective on it as part of that.

 

Q50 Chairman: How long was the FM service off air?

Peter Horrocks: I think it was a couple of months.

 

Q51 Chairman: But it's been restored?

Peter Horrocks: It has been restored. We are back on air now, yes.

 

Q52 Chairman: I understand you've also had a problem in Azerbaijan.

Peter Horrocks: Yes. We're not on the air at all in Azerbaijan. Along with other international broadcasters, we had a variety of ways of getting our content to audiences, with relay stations and also local partnerships, and all of those were stopped by action of the Azerbaijani Government.

 

Q53 Chairman: What reason was given?

Behrouz Afagh: They said they introduced legislation, but we believe it was political.

 

Q54 Chairman: Was this related to an election? The election was some time past, wasn't it?

Behrouz Afagh: It was. Sometimes some of this legislation coincided with an event, but it's been a trend. It started in 2006-07, I believe, and it's continued and the last chapter was in January 2009, when they removed-

 

Q55 Chairman: And you're still off air in Azerbaijan?

Behrouz Afagh: Yes, and that's the case for all international broadcasters.

 

Q56 Chairman: Can I move on to your financial situation. What is your expected financial out-turn for the current financial year?

Richard Thomas: At the moment we're forecasting probably a small underspend, mainly because we're having trouble recruiting all the positions that we have in the Persian service and the Arabic service.

 

Q57 Chairman: What about the impact of the decline in the value of sterling? Has that been a serious problem for you?

Richard Thomas: Yes, it has. We spend about £24 million-worth in foreign currencies around the world. We get in, through some of the other commercial deals, about £4 million-worth. So we've got a net exposure, if you like, of about £20 million. I think that in the last financial year the fall in value of sterling cost us about £4 million, so we had to cover that, we put extra savings in to offset that, we had a reserve anyway and we've actually had to increase the reserve in the current year budget.

 

Q58 Chairman: Did the overseas pricing mechanism apply to the World Service?

Richard Thomas: No. I'm not even sure what that is.

 

Q59 Chairman: So this hasn't been a sudden change. You weren't in the same position as the British Council or some of our diplomatic posts around the world?

Richard Thomas: No. We're not in that sort of network. We're much more tied in with the BBC and the way it manages foreign currency, and we hedge against it, but we don't speculate. The hedging is very much just fixing so that we know what our exposure is.

 

Q60 Chairman: So if the pound suddenly starts going up again you'll be doing very well.

Richard Thomas: We'll benefit, absolutely.

 

Q61 Chairman: I'm not going to speculate on that one. I'm still keeping my dollars, though.

Finally, your departmental resources accounts referred to a number of planned efficiency savings. Have you got any other savings in mind that are not mentioned in your 2008 report?

Richard Thomas: I think there are some things, which will help out next year. In particular, you'll have noticed in the press lots of stuff about controlling pay within the BBC. We didn't have any bonuses last year-there'll be an impact with that next year-and we had a pay settlement lower than the previous year's. That will help us to stay within our current funding as well. Also, some of our external contracts are related to the retail prices index, so when RPI is low we get a benefit. Obviously, when RPI has been high we've had to find that money. The current financial situation, where it affects RPI, will help us at least in the short term.

 

Q62 Chairman: This is the same question that I asked the British Council. In the current national and international economic climate and projections for the need to reduce public spending, what are your priorities for the next comprehensive spending review? Where would you envisage making cuts if you had to?

Peter Horrocks: We are considering that very closely at the moment. We are going through a programme of engagement with all of our staff which we refer to as World Service Choices, which is about taking our view on what priorities there should be. We talked earlier about investing in multi-media services and there are key parts of the world-Africa, India, Pakistan-where being able to do that to maintain the BBC's reach and reputation will be important to us. So we are focused on things that we want to add.

In terms of looking for savings, there are some opportunities that are available to us because of the new BBC journalism headquarters currently being built in Portland Place, where we are coming together with BBC News. The joining together of operations should allow us to achieve some efficiencies. We are also looking at other structural and distribution costs and so on. Our initial focus is not to want to reduce any of our language services.

We have not got the same clear-cut decision that we were able to take with regard to the Arabic service by saying, "Here are some countries we are providing services for within Europe, but it is no longer necessary because they have joined the EU." We are not in that position, so we are looking for savings in other areas initially, but that will obviously depend on the resources that are available and the discussions that will no doubt happen over the next year or 18 months about ongoing funding. We need to be ready to respond to prioritisation so we are looking at which are the most important services and which are the ones which, if we had to, we might reduce, but obviously we do not want to be in that position unless it is absolutely essential.

 

Q63 Chairman: You referred to a new journalism centre. What is the prospect long term for Bush House?

Peter Horrocks: We will be leaving Bush House. The Bush House lease expires in 2012 and we are moving to what we refer to as W1, which is the BBC's new journalism and radio headquarters where the BBC's radio service is. All of the domestic journalism, all of the global news and World Service journalism will be in a single, effective building where the knowledge that the language service teams from the World Service have got will be blended together with all the domestic news operation in what will be the biggest news centre in the world.

 

Q64 Chairman: So you won't make any capital gain by moving out of Bush House.

Richard Thomas: We do not own Bush House.

 

Q65 Chairman: Who does?

Richard Thomas: I think it is Japanese owned.

Chairman: I can see another London hotel. Gentlemen, thank you very much. It has been very valuable. We will follow up with you the other areas on which you said you would send us more information.