Tag Archives: BBC World Service

Guardian: BBC World Service asking for voluntary redundancies

(Photo source: NY Times)

Corporation’s global arm to close 73 editorial posts, but hopes to avoid compulsory layoffs as part of £42m budget cuts

The BBC World Service has urged all its network news journalists to consider voluntary redundancy as it aims to avoid compulsory layoffs as part of £42m budget cuts.

The BBC’s global arm is closing 73 editorial posts following its cut in funding by the government in 2010.

Post closures include 16 in network news, which includes domestic journalists based around the UK, 14 in World Service news, and two in newsgathering for world and business.

Stephen Mitchell, the BBC’s deputy director of news, urged staff to consider voluntary redundancy in an email on Thursday morning.

He said: “We are committed to avoiding compulsory redundancies where possible, and have previously been very successful in achieving this. We hope to continue our good record, and therefore are asking all network news staff once again whether they wish to be considered for voluntary redundancy.”

[…]Compulsory redundancies at the World Service led to two walkouts by staff last year.

[…]The National Union of Journalists has criticised the World Service cuts. General secretary Michelle Stanistreet said the job losses “fly in the face” of the corporation’s commitment to quality programming, and urged director general George Entwistle to push for a renegotiation of the licence fee settlement.

“The World Service is a source of information for people across the world, described by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan as ‘perhaps Britain’s greatest gift to the world’,” Stanistreet added.

[…]”These cuts will severely impair the BBC’s scope and services at a time when they are needed more than ever. The BBC needs to stop and rethink its approach to the World Service before it does irreparable damage.”

Read the full article at The Guardian website.

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BBC celebrates 90 years of radio with a global simulcast, you can contribute

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(Source: BBC)

The BBC today announced plans for an unprecedented global simulcast across its radio networks – including every UK station (local, network and national) and many World Service outlets – curated by Damon Albarn to mark 90 years of radio.

The simultaneous broadcast, called Radio Reunited, will take place on November 14 at 17:33 GMT – 90 years since the first broadcast from the British Broadcasting Company in 1922 – to a potential global audience of 120 million people across every inhabited continent.

The three-minute transmission will be based on recorded messages from listeners around the world on the theme of the future. Each of an estimated 60 BBC radio stations will choose one message and many of them will then be mixed together and set to a musical score specially composed by the Blur frontman.

It will form the centrepiece of the on-air celebrations to mark 90 years of BBC Radio, which will also feature a wide range of special programming across BBC stations, full details of which will be announced nearer the time.

[…]Damon Albarn said: “I love the idea of stations across Britain and the World Service coming together, with all of our different lives and circumstances, even if it’s only for a few minutes. It’s a powerful idea.”

Radio Reunited is one of the key broadcasts to mark the anniversary. Two of the other major programming projects launched today to celebrate 90 years of BBC radio are:

– The Listeners’ Archive – on October 11 the BBC begins a major initiative to recover the lost gems of the broadcasting archive by calling an ‘amnesty’ on recorded media. Listeners are asked to scour their lofts, garages and cupboards for tapes, cassettes and other recordings of BBC radio programmes from 1936 to 2000, and hand them in at BBC Centres around the UK on ‘Amnesty Day’. BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 5live, BBC Local Radio in England and the BBC Nations are all involved. Central to the project will be a series of shows on Radio 2 and 6 Music around the 90th anniversary, where clips of the recovered content – and possibly whole programmes – will be played, and introduced by the person who originally recorded them. [Continue reading…]

The BBC has full details of how you can participate. I would hope that there are some readers of the SWLing Post who may have recordings to share for The Listener’s Archive. I believe I have some old recordings of the BBC WS on New Year’s Eve 1999–if I can only find them!

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BBC Bush House: auctioning bits of radio history

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BBC World Service – Bush House

(Source: London Evening Standard)

Thousands of fragments of BBC history, ranging from “on air” lights to a picture of Sir Paul McCartney broadcasting live to fans in Russia, are going under the hammer in a huge auction.

The lots are all from Bush House, the Aldwych home of the BBC World Service for the past 71 years, which the Corporation vacates tomorrow. Entire studios are among the items for sale and are expected to attract bids of up to £10,000.

Elizabeth Sewell, managing director of specialist auctioneers Peaker Pattison, which is handling the sale, said: “A lot of overseas radio stations are interested in buying the large studios such as S6, which is the one Paul McCartney used to broadcast to Russia. We’ve had enquiries from India, Pakistan and all across the former eastern bloc.”

Turntables and reel-to-reel tape decks in the auction have attracted huge interest from club DJs who use them for mixing dance tracks. Online bidding for the first 1,500 lots has already started and will end on July 25. A second tranche of lots will be sold in September. The highest bid so far is £910 for a Steinway baby grand piano.

Many of the lots reflect the huge diversity of cultures represented at Bush House, where 68 language services were broadcast, ranging from Maltese to Welsh for Argentinian Patagonia.

They include maps of India, Mexico, central Africa and the main theatre of the Second World War, as well as a painting of the BBC motto “Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation”.

As well as the former Beatle’s famous 1989 broadcast, there are photographs of Mikhail Gorbachev, Bob Geldof, Charlton Heston, Sir Bobby Charlton and Yes Minister actor Paul Eddington.

Staff at Bush House have now relocated to the newly refurbished Broadcasting House in Portland Place. The BBC European Service moved into Bush House in 1941 after bomb damage at Broadcasting House, followed in 1958 by the rest of the Overseas Service.[…]

Read the full article at the London Evening Standard.

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Aung San Suu Kyi visits the BBC World Service with thanks, criticism

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Aung San Suu Kyi (photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Noted Burmese opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, visited the BBC World Service last week. Her visit served, in part, to thank them for their broadcasts, which became a lifeline of information for her during her fifteen-year imprisonment in Burma between 1995 and 2010. Shortwave radio connected her with the outside world in the solitude of her prison years.

Sadly, many of the programs offered by the BBC World Service have been cut since Ms. Suu Kyi’s imprisonment. She voiced a few comments about the cuts:

(Source: BBC World Service)

Ms Suu Kyi’s schedule on Tuesday – her 67th birthday – involved a visit to BBC World Service staff at the new Broadcasting House in central London.

“Because of the BBC, I never lost touch with my people, with the movement for democracy in Burma and with the rest of the world. For that, I would like to thank all of you very sincerely,” she said.

But Ms Suu Kyi also said she was “a little sad” about changes to programming on the World Service.

“I feel that the BBC World Service is not as versatile as it used to be – or perhaps I’m not listening at the right times,” she said.

“There used to be so many different programmes, and every time I listen to it now, it’s news and commentaries. I miss the other old programmes… Bookshelf, Just a Minute, and so many others which I don’t seem to hear now…

“It’s not what it used to be,” she said.

During her four-day tour of the UK, Ms Suu Kyi is due to meet members of the Royal Family and address the UK Parliament.

Of note as well was the praise she showered on veteran British DJ, Dave Lee Travis, whose music request program she called “a jolly good show” for making her world “much more complete. I can relate, at least to some degree: you see, music, it seems, still delights listeners on shortwave.

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BBC World Service: A Lifetime of Shortwave Radio

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(photo: BBC World Service)

An Antarctic glaciologist, Burmese monk, communications professor and a Somalian tell their shortwave radio stories in this article posted by the BBC World Service in honor of 80 years of shortwave radio broadcasts. In my opinion, these stories are very much representative of the power of shortwave radio and why, for many parts of the world, it is still vital. Though this article focuses on a look into the past, there are still many parts of the world that have no access to the internet, nor reliable electricity and/or their people live under repressive regimes. Shortwave radio offers a lifeline of information. Shortwave listening habits are not traceable or trackable (like they are over the internet) by those in power. The story below, by a Burmese monk, could stand as an example.

(Source: BBC World Service)

[…]The BBC has been an integral part of my life for over two decades now – I believe I haven’t missed a single transmission in all those years. I even kept a diary of all broadcasts from 1988 to 2003, recording all new staff who joined in those years and their first ever broadcast.

I started listening to the BBC Burmese Service in 1988 when the whole country rose up against one-party rule.

I was living in western Burma’s Rakhine State, teaching Buddhist scripture to the student monks. I was fascinated by the BBC’s coverage of the news and was much impressed that the news I heard on BBC turned out to be exactly what was happening in the country.

I was a well-informed and knowledgeable monk, partly because of the BBC. The BBC, because of its reporting on Burma, was much hated by the military authorities and people had to secretly listen to it within their own homes. But luckily for me, I had my own monastery then and could listen to the broadcasts relatively undisturbed.

Then I left for India for further studies but continued to listen. On my return to Burma, I moved to Rangoon, the then capital and stayed at a monastery on the suburbs of the city. Rangoon was a hotbed of activism against military rule and the military government openly practised a “divide and rule” policy. People were suspicious of each other and that distrust spread to the monasteries as well.

The other monks in the monastery disapproved of my listening to the BBC, because they feared government reprisals, and some even said I was an “informer” providing information to foreign broadcasters. They dubbed me a “reporter monk”.

I took more precautions but never stopped listening. I would take my transistor radio and go outside to the farthest corner of the monastery compound, away from other monks, at the times of the broadcasts.

Every day I learned something from the radio. My morning teaching lessons start only after the BBC morning programme and I do my nightly prayer after the evening programme.

My radio is set at the frequencies on which the BBC Burmese broadcasts and I usually tune in a few minutes before the programme starts. I don’t want to miss anything. When the weather is bad, it takes more dedicated effort to tune into the shortwave signal, but I don’t mind that.

Some people frown on monks listening to the BBC. But I believe my life is enriched by it. The BBC has become a very important part of my life and I will continue listening to it until the end of my life. As Buddha has taught, we living beings must face the truth and bring about the truth. I believe the BBC is earning this merit every day by sharing the truth with millions of listeners.[…]

Read the BBC World Service article in its entirety here. I have filed this article under our ever-growing tag “Why Shortwave Radio?”

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BBC World Service: Celebrating 80th birthday live on air

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BBC World Service - Bush House

(Source: BBC World Service)

BBC World Service brings you a special day of programming on 29 February to celebrate 80 years of international radio broadcasting.

We’ll begin the day with a live broadcast of the daily news meeting– which usually takes place behind closed doors – a meeting of all the language service and English news heads who decide the day’s news agenda.

Other highlights include an audience with naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough; writer VS Naipaul will be talking about his time at BBC World Service with the Caribbean service and music producer William Orbit will be guest editing our arts programme, The Strand.

Listen out for topics such as entrepreneurship in Africa, the future of international broadcasting, and the amazing abilities of an athlete’s body.

Throughout the day, you’ll be able to watch video clips of guests and staff around our current headquarters, Bush House.

We’ll also be asking you to put questions to guests and BBC World Service staff via clickFacebook, so join us if you can.

clickFor full details of Bush House Inside Out, check out the schedule.

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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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