Tag Archives: BBC Shortwave

BBC World Service: Global audience up, shortwave listeners in “steep decline”

BBC’S Global audience rises to 376m

The BBC is reaching a record weekly audience of 376m people, new figures published today reveal.

The figures – the Global Audience Measure (GAM) – show how many adults the BBC reached weekly with its news and entertainment content in the year 2017/18.

The BBC World Service, which has just undertaken its biggest expansion since the 1940s, has seen its audience increase by 10m, to 279m.
The total global news audience has risen by a million, to 347m.

The GAM shows the way people access their news is continuing to change around the world. With the increased availability of cheap smartphones around the world, audiences are continuing to switch to digital platforms for news. Overall, online news website audiences have grown by four million, with social media audiences up by nine million.

The English language international website, BBC.com, continues to perform well even in competitive markets like the USA, adding two million weekly users this year.

More people listen directly to World Service English via the internet than by any other method – a total of 27m. And World Service English podcasts now reach one million people every week.

However, shortwave radio listening continues its steep decline, with shortwave audiences virtually disappearing in Pakistan, and down substantially in Nigeria.

Jamie Angus, Director of the BBC World Service Group, says: “This has been an exciting year for the BBC World Service, with the launch of 12 new services, new programming, and the opening of new and expanded bureaux across the world, so it is great to see international audiences continuing to turn to the BBC for independent and impartial news.

The figures highlight not only the successes of our global news operation, but the challenges that lie ahead for us. We still need to grow the share of women engaging with our news services globally, and we need to ensure we have the right services to continue to attract young audiences.

At a time when Britain is forging a new relationship with nations around the world, the BBC’s global news services are more important than ever.”

The figures also show:

More than a quarter of the BBC World Service’s audience is aged between 15-24 years old.

In Afghanistan, more than 60% of the adult population consumes BBC News; in Nigeria the figure is just under 40%

The top ten markets for the BBC’s international news services are Nigeria (41m), USA (33m), India (30m), Bangladesh (16m), Egypt (16m), Iran (13m), Afghanistan (12m), Tanzania (10m), Pakistan (9m) and Indonesia (8m).

More people are consuming more than one BBC service, or using more than one platform to access BBC News; 24m people consume the World Service in English as well as other languages.

Notes to Editors
The Global Audience Measure is an annual update of how many people are consuming the BBC weekly for all services in all countries across all platforms (television, radio, website and social media). Key to this is de-duplication i.e. ensuring that a person who consumes multiple BBC services or platforms or on multiple devices is not counted many times in the top level totals.

The total figure includes audiences for all BBC News services outside the UK and branded entertainment content on TV, BBC websites and social media pages for BBC Studios.

PR

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The BBC World Service A16 shortwave broadcast schedule

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan H, who writes:

The A16 schedule is released for BBC World Service. Here is a link to the A16 frequency page which features additional links to regional frequency charts and transmitter details.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2x9tqt6mc05vB2S37j8MWMJ/global-short-wave-frequencies

Good news for me is the BBC World Service English language transmission on 11890 kHz from 1500-1700 UTC. Although beamed to Afghanistan and Iran this signal has been strong in northern California for the last several mornings! I must be receiving an odd lobe off of this one! Now I have BBC during breakfast in addition to 7445 kHz I use during my evenings at 0500. Here is a video I shot of 11890 reception this morning.

(Click here to view on YouTube.)

I hope this information is useful for SWL Post readers.

Indeed it is! Thank you for sharing the schedule info and your video, Dan!

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BBC sets plans for next decade

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Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Bill, for sharing a link to this article which summarizes the BBC’s plans for the next ten years.

BBC director general, Tony Hall, said the corporation will become an “open BBC for the internet age”.

While Hall was quick to add that funding cuts would equate to “the loss or reduction of some services” he also highlighted several efforts that would include shortwave and mediumwave broadcasts, including:

“Significant investment” in the BBC World Service, including a daily news programme for North Korea and more broadcasts to Russia, India and the Middle East
A news service for Ethiopia and Eritrea on medium wave and short wave

Of course, we can expect more cuts to BBC World Service shortwave broadcasting over the next ten years even if it wasn’t specifically mentioned in Hall’s speech. If we’re lucky, the BBC will continue to broadcast into those parts of the world that still rely on shortwave. Specifically mentioning North Korea, Ethiopia and Eritrea appears to be a nod in that direction.

Click here to read this article on the BBC News website.

Also, The Guardian has posted the full text of Tony Hall’s speech. It’s worth reading.

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As BBC World Service moves from Bush House, they open doors

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BBC World Service - Bush House

BBC World Service opens doors to celebrate 80th birthday

(Source: BBC Press Office)

Global audience gets unique behind the scenes access as move from iconic London home begins.

Audiences are to be given unprecedented behind the scenes access as part of a special day of live programming on February 29, to mark the BBC World Service’s 80th birthday.

Highlights from the day will include a special global audience with Sir David Attenborough and The Strand – the WS global arts programme – will be edited by guest artist and music producer William Orbit.

Audiences will be able to join a special debate about what they want from the World Service, both on air, online and across social media forums. (#bbcws80)

The day will give audiences around the world a unique insight into production of their favourite programmes and multilingual videos will be produced of all the broadcasts throughout the day online at bbc.co.uk/worldservice.

For the first time audiences will be invited to watch and participate in over 12 hours of programmes in English and across more than 12 different languages. The day will be hosted by BBC Persian’s Pooneh Ghoddoosi and BBC World Service presenter Ros Atkins.

BBC World Service’s daily morning editorial meeting, which normally takes place behind the doors of Bush House, will be opened up and broadcast live for the first time. In this meeting – a daily part of life in the building – the newsroom’s editors discuss and agree the big stories and developments and decide on which stories will shape the day’s news agenda.

The open courtyard of Bush House will host many of the programmes that day. Flagship programmes such as Newshour and World Have Your Say will invite audiences to join a conversation about international broadcasting and the future priorities of the BBC World Service.

Listeners around the world – and the audience at Bush House – will have the chance to shape the news agenda and debate by making suggestions from the floor, or through Twitter, Facebook and Skype.

Peter Horrocks, Director of BBC Global News, said: “The 80th birthday and departure from Bush House means these are historic and changing times for the BBC World Service. We want our audiences to be at the heart of both the commemoration of the past and conversation about the future.”

BBC World Service Commissioning Editor, Steve Titherington, said: “We are turning Bush House inside out showing who we are and what we do to our audiences and asking what the world wants next from the BBC World Service.”

On February 29, BBC World Service is also launching a new series of programmes on the human body. Linked to the Olympics, The Human Race will invite the public to take part in a ‘healthcheck special’ featuring leading international scientists and sportspeople.

Not only celebrating 80 years of broadcasting, this special day of programming marks the start of the BBC World Service’s move from Bush House, its iconic London home for over 70 years, to a new state of the art broadcasting centre in Oxford Circus.

The move will see all of the BBC’s news services – UK and international – based together for the first time. The aim is to create ‘the world’s newsroom’ – enhancing the BBC’s global newsgathering and creating a forum for the best journalism in the world.

Programming

BBC World Service English – much of the day’s global schedule from 07:00 to 23:00 GMT will broadcast live from outside Bush House. Programming highlights from this day include:

09:00 – The live news meeting – normally conducted behind closed doors, audiences will for the first time be given insight into the inner workings of the newsroom.

11:00 – World Have Your Say – the global interactive news discussion programme will ask audiences around the world what they want the programme to be about on that day.

15:00 – A live global audience with Sir David Attenborough.

17:00 – World Business Report and Focus on Africa will link up to broadcast a special programme asking how business journalism is reporting the financial crisis with Alistair Darling on the panel, and looking at the creative energy and entrepreneurship coming out of Africa.

19:00 Health Check – will air a special programme to launch The Human Race Season – a raft of programmes examining the human body. Endurance runners and sprinters, sports psychologists, doctors and coaches will all be in the courtyard to try to answer ‘What makes an Olympic athelete?’

20:00 – 22:00 – Newshour, BBC World Services flagship current affairs show, will broadcast a special debate looking at the future of international broadcasting.

22:00 – 23:00 – The Strand Extra – BBC World Service’s global arts show, will be edited by special guest artist and music producer William Orbit.

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