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BBC World Service

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For the BBC television network, see BBC World News.
"World Service" redirects here. For information about the music albums of the same name, see World Service (album) and World Service (Delirious? album).
BBC World Service
TypeRadio network
Country
United Kingdom
AvailabilityInternational
OwnerBBC
Key people
Peter Horrocks (Director)
Launch date
19 December 1932
Official website
www.bbcworldservice.com

The BBC World Service is one arguably the most widely-recognised international broadcasters, currently broadcasting in 32 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays. It is politically independent (by reason of the BBC Carter) [citation needed], non-profit and commercial-free. It broadcasts radio and television programmes.

The English language service broadcasts 24 hours a day. In June 2009 the BBC reported that the World Service's average weekly audience had reached 188 million people.[1] The World Service is funded by grant-in-aid through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by the British Government[2] — unlike the BBC's domestic radio and television services, which are primarily funded by a compulsory licence fee levied on every household in the United Kingdom using a television to watch programmes as they are being broadcast. Despite this form of funding, the World Service remains editorially independent,[2][better source needed] although the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is closely consulted in decisions about which languages are broadcast.

The Director of the World Service is Peter Horrocks.

History

The BBC World Service began as the BBC Empire Service in 1932 as a shortwave service.[3] Its broadcasts were aimed principally at English speakers in the outposts of the British Empire, or as George V put it in the first-ever Royal Christmas Message, the "men and women, so cut off by the snow, the desert, or the sea, that only voices out of the air can reach them."[4]

First hopes for the Empire Service were low. The [Director General of the BBC|[Director General]], Sir Reith later Lord John Reith said in the opening programme: "Don't expect too much in the early days; for some time we shall transmit comparatively simple programmes, to give the best chance of intelligible reception and provide evidence as to the type of material most suitable for the service in each zone. The programmes will neither be very interesting nor very good."[5] This address was read out five times as it was broadcast live to different parts of the world.

On 3 January 1938 the first foreign language service, Arabic, was launched. German programmes commenced shortly before the start of the Second World War and by the end of 1942 broadcasts were being made in all major European languages. The Empire Service was renamed the BBC Overseas Service in November 1939, and a dedicated BBC European Service was added in 1941. These broadcasting services, financed not from the domestic licence fee but from government grant-in-aid (from the Foreign Office budget), were known administratively as the External Services of the BBC.

The External Services gained a special position in international broadcasting during the Second World War, as an alternative source of news for a wide range of audiences, especially those in enemy and occupied territories who often had to listen secretly. George Orwell broadcast many news bulletins on the Eastern Service during World War II[6][7].

The German Service, created on 29 March 1938 and discontinued in 1999, played an important part in the propaganda war against Nazi Germany.[8]

Bush House, home to the World Service.

The service has been located at Bush House since a landmine damaged the studios' original home at Broadcasting House on 8 December 1940. The European Service was the first to relocate, followed by the rest of the External Services in 1958. As part of a larger changes in terms of the use of BBC properties, the World Service will return to Broadcasting House in 2011, when BBC News, BBC World, the World Service, and BBC London will all be located in the same newsroom for the first time.

The name "BBC World Service" was first used on 1 May 1965.[citation needed]

In August 1985, the service went off the air for the first time ever. Workers were striking in protest at the British government's decision to ban a documentary featuring an interview with Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin.

The External Services were renamed under the BBC World Service brand in 1988. As part of a restructuring process, ten foreign language services were closed down in March 2006 in order to finance a new BBC Arabic Television service for the Middle East. The Polish service was one of those that closed.[9]

Aim

According to the World Service, its aim is to "be the world's best-known and most-respected voice in international broadcasting, thereby bringing benefit to Britain".[10]

The UK Government spent £225 million on the World Service in 2005. This spending of the British taxpayers' money by the Government was justified by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1985. According to Hansard, the journal of the British Parliament, in an answer to a question in the House of Commons, Mrs Thatcher said: "The World Service earns every penny we put into it, by promoting our world-view and policy. It has done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future".[citation needed]

The BBC is a Crown Corporation of the British Government, but operates independently of it. There is no direct control of the BBC by the British Government. The World Service may, however, promote the British point of view and foreign policy. Some would argue that examples of this were the coverage of the Suez Crisis in July 1956, its coverage of the Falklands War from April to June 1982, and its coverage of the handover of Britain's former colony of Hong Kong in 1997.[citation needed]

The BBC World Service is widely respected in parts of the world where the media is not free.[citation needed] With the BBC’s powerful transmitters broadcasting in the local language, the BBC World Service can be the only source of reliable news not manipulated by the local government. This is the strategy that the BBC adopted successfully during the Cold War, becoming a widely respected broadcaster behind the Iron Curtain throughout the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. In its 2007 Foreign & Commonwealth Office Annual Report, the House of Commons' Foreign Affairs Committee concluded that the BBC Russian Service's joint project with Bolshoe Radio: was "the development of a partnership with the international arm of a Russian state broadcasting network [which] puts the BBC World Service’s reputation for editorial independence at risk."[11].

BBC Learning English, a constituent part of the larger World Service, devotes significant resources to helping people learn English.[12]

Programmes

The English programme of the BBC World Service initially strived to be everything to everyone, offering news, background, entertainment, culture and spiritual matters. After the 1990s only news, background, and culture remained.

After 1945

After 1945, the World Service was recognisably British in its programming. This was most clearly symbolised by the hourly broadcast of the song Lillibullero (still broadcast, but not as often as before), followed by the chimes of Big Ben (no longer used in English-language broadcasts). Apart from news, there were music programmes, such as those presented by John Peel, classical music programmes presented by Edward Greenfield, religious programmes with mostly Anglican celebrations, often from the Church of St. Martin in the Fields, weekly drama, educational programmes such as English-language lessons, and humour, with Just A Minute. The hourly news always contained a section called News from Britain.

The towering figure among the informative programmes was Letter from America by Alistair Cooke, which was broadcast for over 50 years. For many years, a daily reading from a novel, biography or history book was broadcast in Off the Shelf. One of the longest running programmes is Outlook, which features human interest stories. It was first broadcast in July 1966 and was presented for more than thirty years by John Tidmarsh, who was awarded an OBE for his services to broadcasting.

After 1990s

At the end of the 1990s the BBC decided to focus more heavily on news. During the Second Gulf War the BBC World Service in English started broadcasting short news summaries at 29 minutes past the hour, and continues to do so. Drama and music are still broadcast, but not as frequently as had been the case previously. The BBC World Service has argued that people tune to them mainly for news and that most people can access plenty of music from other sources.

Current programming

Mainstays of the current BBC World Service schedule include the news programmes The World Today, Newshour and World Briefing and the daily arts and entertainment news programme The Strand, which started in late 2008. At the weekends, much of the schedule is taken up by Sportsworld, which often includes live commentary of Premier League football matches. On Sundays the international, interdisciplinary discussion programme The Forum is broadcast. On weekdays, an hour of the schedule is given over to World: Have Your Say which encourages listeners to participate in discussing current events via text message, phone calls, emails and blog postings.

Statistics and languages

The following audience estimates are from research conducted in 2004 by independent market research agencies[specify] on behalf of the BBC:

Language 2004 2006
English 39 million 44 million
Persian 20.4 million 22 million
Hindi 16.1 million 21 million
Urdu 10.4 million 12 million
Arabic 12.4 million 16 million

In Africa and the Middle East the service broadcasts to 66 million listeners, of which 18.7 million are in English.

Besides English, the BBC World Service currently broadcasts in

The German broadcasts were stopped in March 1999 after 60 years, as research showed that the majority of German listeners tuned in to the English version. Broadcasts in Dutch, Finnish, French for Europe, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese and Malay were stopped for similar reasons.

On 25 October 2005 it was announced that the Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Kazakh, Polish,[9] Slovak, Slovene and Thai language radio services would end by March 2006 in order to finance the launch of an Arabic and Persian language TV news channel in 2007. Romanian broadcasts ceased on 1 August 2008.

Transmission

Traditionally, the BBC World Service relied on shortwave, because of its ability to overcome barriers of censorship, distance and spectrum scarcity. To this end, the BBC has maintained a worldwide network of shortwave relay stations since the 1940s, mainly in (former) British colonies. Over the decades, some of these stations have acquired increasingly powerful mediumwave and FM outlets as well. A special use of such cross-border broadcasts has been emergency messages to British subjects abroad, such as the advice to evacuate Jordan during the Black September incidents of September 1970. These facilities were privatised in 1997 and are operated as part of a wider network by VT Communications (formerly Merlin), which also brokers time for dozens of other sites. It is common for BBC programmes to air on traditionally Voice of America or ORF transmitters, while their programming is relayed by a station physically located in the UK.

Since the 1980s, satellite distribution has made it possible for local stations to relay BBC programming, typically news bulletins but also educational, drama, and sports programming. The World Service is available as a free (basic) channel on a large number of satellite and cable systems. Both a live stream and an archive of previous programmes (now including podcasts) are available on the Internet.

Africa

The BBC World Service has a large audience in English-speaking Africa, and is engaged in a long-standing battle with Radio France Internationale for audiences [citation needed]. Broadcasts have traditionally come from the UK, Cyprus (see Europe), the large BBC Atlantic Relay Station on Ascension Island, and the smaller Lesotho Relay Station and Indian Ocean Relay Station on Seychelles. A large part of the English schedule is taken up by specialist programming from and for Africa, for example Network Africa, Focus on Africa and Africa Have Your Say. In the 1990s, the BBC added FM facilities in many African capital cities.

Americas

BBC shortwave broadcasts to this region were traditionally enhanced by the Atlantic Relay Station and the Caribbean Relay Company, a station in Antigua run jointly with Deutsche Welle. In addition, an exchange agreement with Radio Canada International gave access to their station in New Brunswick. However, "changing listening habits" led the World Service to end shortwave radio transmission directed to North America and Australasia on July 1, 2001.[13][14] A shortwave listener coalition formed to oppose the change.[15] Currently, both XM Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio rebroadcast the World Service over commercial satellite radio to Canada and the United States,[16] and public radio stations often carry World Service news broadcasts over AM and FM radio, often through Public Radio International (PRI). The BBC and PRI also co-produce the programme The World with WGBH Radio Boston, and the BBC is also involved with The Takeaway morning news programme based at WNYC in New York City.

The BBC continues to broadcast to the Caribbean, Central America and South America in several languages, including a specialist Caribbean news service in English. It is also possible to receive the Caribbean and Western African shortwave radio broadcasts from eastern North America, but the BBC does not guarantee reception in this area.[17] It has recently ended its eccentric specialist programming to the Falkland Islands but continues to provide a stream of World Service programming to the Falkland Islands Broadcasting Service.[18]

Asia

For several decades, the World Service's largest audiences have been in Asia, the Middle East, Near East and South Asia. Transmission facilities in the UK and Cyprus have been supplemented by the former BBC Eastern Relay Station in Oman and the Far Eastern Relay Station in Singapore. The East Asian Relay Station moved from Hong Kong to Thailand when the former British colony reverted to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. Together, these facilities have given the BBC World Service an easily-accessible signal in regions where shortwave listening has traditionally been popular. The English shortwave frequencies of 6195, 9740, 15360 and 17760 kHz are widely known.

The largest audiences are in English, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and other major languages of South Asia, where BBC broadcasters are household names. The Persian service is essentially the national broadcaster of Afghanistan, along with its Iranian audience. The World Service is available up to eighteen hours a day in English across Asia, and in Arabic for the Middle East. With the addition of relays in Afghanistan and Iraq these services are accessible in most of the Middle and Near East, at least in the evening. In Hong Kong and Singapore, the BBC World Service in English is essentially treated as a domestic broadcaster, easily available through long-term agreements with RTHK and MediaCorp.

Jamming

Further information: Radio jamming in Korea and Radio jamming in China

By contrast, there are isolated pockets of severe difficulty. Iran, Iraq and Myanmar/Burma have all jammed the BBC in the past, and powerful broadcasts in Mandarin are still made unlistenable by the People's Republic of China. Japan and Korea have little tradition of World Service listening, although during the 1970s to 1980s, shortwave listening used to be popular in Japan. In those two countries, the BBC World Service had been only available via shortwave and the Internet. As of September 2007, a satellite transmission (subscription required) became available by Skylife (Channel 791) in South Korea.

On Friday 13 January 2006, Thai BBC was closed to divert resources instead to a new Arabic language satellite TV broadcasting station, although there were more than 570,000 listeners weekly.[19]

Europe

Former BBC shortwave transmitters are located in the United Kingdom at Rampisham, Woofferton and Skelton. The former BBC East Mediterranean Relay Station is in Cyprus. The World Service uses a mediumwave transmitter at Orford Ness to provide English-language coverage to Europe, including on the frequency 648 kHz (which can be heard in the south-east of England). A second channel traditionally broadcast in various Central European languages, but in 2005 it began regular English-language transmissions via the DRM format.[20] This is a digital shortwave technology that VT expects to become the standard for cross-border transmissions in developed countries.

In the 1990s, the BBC purchased and constructed large mediumwave and FM networks in the former Soviet bloc, particularly the Czech (BBC Czech Section), Slovak Republics (BBC Slovak Section), Poland (BBC Polish Section) (where it was a national network) and Russia (BBC Russian Service). It had built up a strong audience during the Cold War, whilst economic restructuring made it difficult for these governments to refuse Western investment. Many of these facilities have now returned to domestic control, as economic and political conditions have changed.

On Monday, February 18, 2008, the BBC World Service stopped analogue shortwave transmissions to Europe. The notice stated, "Increasing numbers of people around the world are choosing to listen to radio on a range of other platforms including FM, satellite and online, with fewer listening on shortwave. " [21] It is sometimes possible to pick up the BBC World Service in Europe on SW frequencies targeted at North Africa. 648 kHz MW is also still directed at Northern Europe. The BBC's powerful 198 kHz LW, which broadcasts the domestic BBC Radio 4 to Britain during the day (and carries the World Service during the night) can also be heard in nearby parts of Europe, including France, the Netherlands and Belgium.

On Wednesday, 10 December 2008, BBC World Service and Deutsche Welle started broadcasting a joint DRM digital radio station. It broadcasts a mix of English-language news and information programmes produced by each partner, and is aimed at an audience in mainland Europe. The station hopes, among other things, to stimulate the production of DRM radio receivers.

Pacific

Shortwave relays from Singapore (see Asia, above) continue, but historic relays via Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and Radio New Zealand International were wound down in the late 1990s. The World Service is available as part of the subscription Digital Air package (available from Foxtel and Austar) in Australia. ABC NewsRadio, SBS Radio, and various community radio stations also broadcast many programmes. Many of these stations broadcast a straight feed during the midnight to dawn period. It is also available pseudo-free-to-air via the satellite service Optus Aurora, which is encrypted for the sake of protecting local rebroadcasting of national television services (a subscription is available for qualifying citizens living in remote areas).

In Sydney, Australia a transmission of the service can be received at 152.025 MHz

BBC World Service relays on Radio Australia is now carried the BBC Radio news programs.

UK

The BBC World Service does not receive funding for broadcasts to the UK, and reliable mediumwave reception has traditionally only been possible in southeast England (see Europe, above). However, since the introduction of digital broadcasting, the World Service's output has recently been made more widely available in the UK—the service is now carried on DAB, Freeview, Virgin Media and Sky Digital. After the British domestic radio station BBC Radio 4 ceases broadcasting at 0100 GMT, the World Service is broadcast on all its frequencies overnight, including 198 kHz longwave, which can be heard in parts of continental Europe.

Although the BBC said that shortwave transmissions for Western Europe have been ceased recently (as of March 2007),[22] shortwave reception of 6195 and 9410 kHz, which might be aimed at Western Russia, used to be still possible for a few hours a day in the UK (sometimes, with high strength of signals). However, this has reportedly become impossible as the BBC said all the remained analogue shortwave transmissions to Europe had ceased as of February 2008.[23] In a very few cases, 15400 kHz from the relay station in Ascension Island still becomes listenable, as are some frequencies directed to Africa. In southeastern England, including London, 648 kHz medium-wave is also available.[24]

Interval signals

The interval signal of the BBC World Service in English were the Bow Bells, a recording made in 1926. Introduced as a symbol of hope during the Second World War, it was until recently used preceding many (though not all) English language broadcasts. Though for a few years in the 1970s, Oranges and Lemons was used as the interval, the Bow Bells were soon reintroduced.

January 1941 saw the beginning of the Morse code letter "V" as an interval signal. The interval signal had several variations including timpani, the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (which coincide with the letter "V"), and electronic tones which until recently remained in use for some Western European services. In other languages, the interval signal is three notes, pitched B-B-C. The use of interval signals on Shortwave broadcasts appears to have been abandoned lately.

Click to hear a Sample of the BBC World Service top of hour announcement

The World Service's well-known signature tune Lillibullero used to be just before the top of many hours, followed by the Greenwich Time Signal and the hourly news. Modern trailers feature a variety of international broadcasting centres and sometimes replace Lillibullero entirely on themed weeks. Until fairly recently, the hourly sequence was preceded by the announcement "This is London" — it is now followed by a more promotional "Wherever you are, you are with the BBC" or "With world news every half hour, this is the BBC". More recently, Lillibulero has been relegated only to occasional use, and on the occasions it is played, only a shortened version is used. It has been suggested (by World Service staff) that the reduction in the use of Lillibullero is firstly because of its background as a Protestant marching song in Northern Ireland, though there is doubt that this as it was firstly a Catholic song [citation needed]. The BBC also says that in modern branding terms, it is somewhat out of step with a global news organisation [citation needed].

The BBC's official response is that the decision was made by the transmission engineers, who found it particularly audible through short wave mush, and that they knew it as a tune for the old English song "There was an old woman tossed up in a blanket, quite 20 times as high as the moon".

Click to hear BBC World Service announce itself, then play Westminster Chimes, announce it is Midnight, Greenwich Mean time, followed by 12 strikes of Big Ben as broadcast at exactly 00:00:00 GMT on 1 January 2009.

GMT is announced on the hour on the English service, e. g. "13 hours Greenwich Mean Time" is said at 1300 GMT. 0000 GMT is announced as "Midnight Greenwich Mean Time". However, "Greenwich Mean Time" is now almost always abbreviated to GMT when the hour is announced. On the transmission of 1 January 2009, as indicated by the audio sample on the left, the service announced it as "Midnight, Greenwich Mean Time."

News

The core feature of much World Service scheduling is the news. This is almost always transmitted at one minute past the hour, where there is a five-minute bulletin, and on the half-hour where there is a two-minute summary. Sometimes these bulletins are separated from the programmes being transmitted, whilst at other times they are integral to the programme (such as with World Briefing, Newshour or The World Today).

Announcers and newsreaders

The BBC World Service employs a large number of newsreaders and announcers. Among those who regularly read the news are:

BBC breaking news policy

BBC policy for breaking news[25] has a priority list. With domestic news, the correspondent first records a "generic minute" summary (for use by all stations and channels) and then priority is to report on Radio 5 Live, then on the domestic BBC News Channel and onto any other programmes that are on air. For foreign news, first a "generic minute" is recorded, then reports are to World Service radio, then the correspondent talks to any other programmes that are on air at the time.

Range of languages

History of BBC World Service Language Broadcasting Services (sorted by language)[26][27][28]

Language Start Date Close Date Restart Date
Afrikaans 14 May 1939 8 September 1957 -
Albanian 12 November 1940 20 January 1967 20 February 1993
Arabic 3 January 1938 BBC Arabic - -
Azeri 30 November 1994 BBC Azeri - -
Belgian French & Belgian Dutch 28 September 1940 30 March 1952 -
Bengali 11 October 1941 BBC Bengali - -
Bulgarian 7 February 1940 23 December 2005 -
Burmese 2 September 1940 BBC Burmese in English. - -
Croatian 29 September 1991 31 January 2006 -
Chinese-Cantonese 5 May 1941 - -
Chinese-Hokkien 1 October 1942 7 February 1948 -
Chinese-Mandarin 5 May 1941 - -
Czech 31 December 1939 28 February 2006 -
Danish 9 April 1940 10 August 1957 -
Dutch 11 April 1940 10 August 1957 -
Dutch for Indonesia 28 August 1944 2 April 1945, 13 May 1951 25 May 1946
English 25 December 1936 BBC English - -
English (Caribbean) 25 December 1976 BBC Caribbean - -
Finnish 18 March 1940 31 March 1997 -
French for Africa 20 June 1960 BBC French - -
French for Canada 2 November 1942 8 May 1980 -
French for Europe 27 September 1938 31 March 1995 -
French for South-East Asia 28 August 1944 3 April 1955 -
German 27 September 1938 30 March 1999 -
German for Austria 29 March 1943 15 September 1957 -
Greek[29] 30 September 1939 31 December 2005 -
Greek for Cyprus 16 September 1940 3 June 1951 -
Gujarati 1 March 1942 3 September 1944 -
Hausa 13 March 1957 - -
Hebrew 30 October 1949 28 October 1968 -
Hindi 11 May 1940 BBC Hindi - -
Hungarian 5 September 1939 31 December 2005 -
Icelandic 1 December 1940 26 June 1944 -
Italian 27 September 1938 31 December 1981 -
Indonesian 30 October 1949 BBC Indonesian - -
Japanese 4 July 1943 31 March 1991 -
Kazakh 1 April 1995 16 December 2005 -
Kinyarwanda 8 September 1994 BBC KinyarwandaPartly in English - -
Kyrgyz 1 April 1995 BBC Kyrgyz - -
Luxembourgish 29 May 1943 30 May 1952 -
Macedonia 6 January 1996 BBC Macedonian - -
Malay 2 May 1941 31 March 1991 -
Maltese 10 August 1940 31 December 1981 -
Marathi 1 March 1942 3 September 1944, 25 December 1958 31 December 1944
Nepali 7 June 1969 - -
Norwegian 9 April 1940 10 August 1957 -
Pashto 15 August 1981 - -
Persian 28 December 1940 BBC Persian - -
Polish 7 August 1939 23 December 2005 -
Portuguese for Africa 4 June 1939 - -
Portuguese-Brasil 14 March 1938 BBC Portuguese - -
Portuguese for Europe 4 June 1939 10 August 1957 -
Romanian 15 September 1939 BBC Romanian 1 August 2008 -
Russian language (BBC Russian Service) 7 October 1942 26 May 1943 24 March 1946
Serbian 29 September 1991 BBC Serbian - -
Sinhala 10 March 1942 30 March 1976 11 March 1990
Slovak 31 December 1941 31 December 2005 -
Slovene 22 April 1941 23 December 2005 -
Somali 18 July 1957 - -
Spanish for the Americas 14 March 1938 - -
Swahili 27 June 1957 - -
Swedish 1941 4 March 1961 -
Tamil 3 May 1941 - -
Thai 27 April 1941 5 March 1960, 13 January 2006 3 June 1962
Turkish 20 November 1939 BBC Turkish - -
Ukrainian 1 June 1992 - -
Urdu 3 April 1949 BBC Urdu - -
Uzbek 30 November 1994 BBC Uzbek - -
Vietnamese 6 February 1952 - -
Welsh (to Patagonia) 1945 1946 -
Yugoslav (Serbo-Croatian) 15 September 1939 28 September 1991 -

Magazine publishing

At various times in its history, the BBC World Service has published magazines and programme guides:

  • London Calling: listings
  • BBC Worldwide: included features of interest to an international audience (included London Calling as an insert)
  • BBC On Air: mainly listings
  • BBC Focus on Africa: current affairs

Of these, only BBC Focus on Africa is still being published.

See also

References

  1. ^ "BBC's international news services attract record global audience of 238 million". BBC.
  2. ^ a b "BBC World Service (BBCWS), The UK's Voice around the World". BBC. Archived from the original on 2006-11-01.
  3. ^ Analysis: BBC's voice in Europe Jan Repa, BBC News Online: 25 October 2005
  4. ^ Historic moments from the 1930s: 1932 - The Empire Service is founded, from the BBC World Service website
  5. ^ Transcribed from recording on World Service 75th Anniversary DVD; full extract transmitted as part of opening program - the Reith Global Debate - of the 'Free to Speak' 75th anniversary season
  6. ^ West, W. J., ed. (1985), Orwell: The War Broadcasts, Duckworth & Co/BBC, ISBN 978-9999723305
  7. ^ West, W. J., ed. (1985), Orwell: The War Commentaries, Duckworth & Co/BBC, ISBN 978-0563203490
  8. ^ The authoritative source on the BBC's German Service is Carl Brinitzer's book "Hier spricht London". Brinitzer, a German lawyer from Hamburg living in exile in London, was a founding member.
  9. ^ a b BBC East Europe voices silenced BBC News Online: 21 December 2005
  10. ^ "Annual Review 2004/2005". BBC News. 2005. Retrieved 2006-05-22.
  11. ^ 2007 Foreign & Commonwealth Office Annual Report, the House of Commons' Foreign Affairs Committee, November 2007 http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmfaff.htm
  12. ^ "BBC Learning English". bbc.co.uk. BBC. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
  13. ^ Pages 1-136 from BBC AR Cover 03
  14. ^ BBC World Service | FAQ
  15. ^ Save the BBC World Service in North America and the Pacific! - BBC to Cut Off 1.2 Million Listeners on July 1
  16. ^ "BBC WORLD SERVICE AND XM ANNOUNCE PROGRAMMING ALLIANCE" (Press release). XM Satellite Radio. 1999-07-26. Retrieved 2007-10-17.
  17. ^ FAQ | World Service
  18. ^ BBC - Press Office - Falkland Islands and BBC to boost home-grown media
  19. ^ Clare Harkey (13 March 2006). "BBC Thai service ends broadcasts". Retrieved 2008-11-08.
  20. ^ "BBC Launches DRM Service In Europe". BBC World Service. 2005-09-07. Retrieved 2006-11-15.
  21. ^ BBC World Service. "Shortwave changes for Europe February 2008" http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/help/2008/02/080208_sw_changes_euro.shtml
  22. ^ BBC World Service - Help and FAQs - Shortwave reductions
  23. ^ BBC World Service - Help and FAQs - Shortwave changes for Europe
  24. ^ The author's experience when the person was in Canterbury, UK in August 2007. The device used for the shortwave reception was the Sony ICF-SW22 (Japanese-made).
  25. ^ "http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/review_report_research/impartiality_business/f2_news_submission.txt". Retrieved 2007-06-19. {{cite web}}: External link in |title= (help)
  26. ^ 75 Years - BBC World Service | Multi-lingual audio | BBC World Service
  27. ^ History of International Broadcasting (IEEE), Volume I.
  28. ^ BBC World Service | Languages
  29. ^ BBCGreek.com | Archive | Greek Archive index
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