(Source: moneycontrol.com)
Terming the BBC Hindi Service as “very important”, Lord Chris Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust and chancellor of the University of Oxford, today said the service will survive the major funding cuts that had severely affected its future.
BBC World Service - Bush House
(Source: The Telegraph)
The new chairman of the BBC has signaled he is prepared to axe sports events and a digital television channel – but vowed to fight to save the World Service from spending cuts.
Read full article at The Telegraph.
BBC World Service - Bush House
According to MSN India, British Members of Parliament have decided that they cannot allow cuts to BBC WS broadcasts in Hindi to India as India is a growing economic power and partner with the UK. Hmmm…I wonder if the BBC WS or VOA will reconsider broadcasting to China for the same reasons?
Andy Sennitt posted the new BBC WS broadcast schedule to India:
Thanks to Kim Elliott for bringing this to my attention.
(Source: The Sydney Morning Herald)
As the Cold War was ending in the late 1980s and early ’90s, Western nations, confident of a lasting peace, began to neglect the tools that had sustained them in the ideological war against communism. In the US, institutions of public diplomacy and strategic communications were disbanded, and foreign service hiring frozen, in what the US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, called a “gutting” of the US’s ability to engage, assist and communicate with the world. Other countries blindly tagged along.
[…] Right after the BBC World Service was forced to announce deep cuts to its budget affecting even its Arabic-language services, Egypt and Tunisia evicted their presidents. The impact is reverberating around the Middle East.[…] The events of the past few weeks in the Middle East have surely reinforced the power of the media (new and old) to inspire, engage and propel change.
The BBC Bush house
This is a sad week for fans and listeners of the BBC World Service.
According to news reports, the British Foreign Office has cut BBC’s World Service budget by 20%, resulting in sweeping reductions in their shortwave service. As many as 650 jobs will be lost by 2014 and cancellation of shortwave service in five languages and several countries. It appears they are cutting SW service to China, Cuba and the Balkans, instead relying on mobile phone & internet access (note that according to Keith Perron, the BBCWS Chinese site has been blocked for 10 years and in Cuba less than 1% of the population have access to the internet).
My real fear is that listeners who rely on the BBC WS via shortwave–those who live in rural, impoverished countries, for example–will have no voice to express the loss of a lifeline of information to them. It’s quite easy for us to forget that the internet and mobile technologies have not yet penetrated these “markets” and that shortwave radio is the most effective and affordable means to receive high-quality news and information.
As The Guardian put it, the BBC WS will be “eclipsed” by Voice of America. I certainly hope that the VOA can give its markets better service stability.
More on the BBC World Service cuts:
Thanks to Kim Elliot, Keith Perron and BernieS for their commentary.