The BBC World Service is going through an unprecedented period of change which calls into question its dwindling global reach.

This is suggested in the report Brave New World Service, published recently by the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association.

This article was written in the light of this report and my own six years’ experience of editorial work in the BBC World Service.

Ten things that many people know and many others don’t:

1 From the government’s coffers

The British Foreign Office funds the BBC World Service. It has done so throughout its history dating back to 1932, when it was born as the “Empire Service”.
The service, which today includes radio, television and Internet, is considered a tool of influence and “soft power” of the British government in various geographical areas of the world: the first news services in other languages, Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese, were created in 1938, and by the end of the Second World War, the BBC was operating in more than 40 languages. The Foreign Office decides which languages ​​are opened or closed down.

2 To the people’s pocket

In the context of an economic crisis and an inflexible policy of budget cuts, the current British government decided to stop funding the World Service. From 2014, the money will come from elsewhere: the British taxpayers themselves.

3 A necessary distinction

The BBC and the World Service had been two different things so far. The BBC itself is directed towards the domestic market and focuses its programming on radio, television and internet to British citizens. Television channels like BBC1 and BBC2, or Radio 4 have always had a strong domestic flavour and are produced 100% in English. The World Service, on the other hand, has a worldwide focus and still operates in 28 languages, including English.

4 Paying to watch TV

While the World Service is funded by the Foreign Office, the BBC gets the bulk of its budget from the British public through a compulsory tax: a “TV licence”, a monthly or annual fixed payment every British household has to pay in order to watch TV legally.

5 And now, TV for foreigners

The World Service has a massive global audience of 180 million users, while its British listeners, albeit devoted, number fewer than two million. As from 2014, the British people should be aware that their money will be paying not only for the right to view your home TV programming, but also programming that can only be seen abroad, namely the World Service.

6 Less and less global

Due to successive cuts, the BBC is increasingly a less global service. In the most recent cuts, the Foreign Office closed five languages ​​and several others were reduced. Radio stations in Latin America, for example, no longer hear “La BBC de Londres”, simply because no such radio service exists anymore. On the Internet, until two years ago, besides the area of ​News, BBC Mundo had an area of I​nteractivity and another focused on Specials staffed with full teams of three and even five people; now they are left with only one producer each. Some World Service journalists describe the most recent escalation of cuts as a “massive exodus”.

7 And with a mission at risk

The World Service’s mission is to feed other nations with international news, but now more than ever, the institution must also attend to their new guarantor: the British taxpayer. The question is: in a context of economic austerity, how will UK license fee payers feel about funding an international service that is predominantly serving an international audience. Or to put it more bluntly: in the current economic climate, taxpayers might feel extra hospitals are more important than Hindi radio.

8 The Latin American audience, a zero

British interests -of the Foreign Office and the people- determine where resources are directed to the BBC World Service. And clearly Asia, the Arab world and Africa stand to gain, given the colonial past of this country. Last June, in the middle of a “spring revolution” in the Arab countries, the Foreign Office agreed to provide 3,3 million dollars extra to the World Service. Not a single penny of this money came to serve the Latin American Service. It was used to help protect services in Arabic and Hindi.

9 English, English, English

Journalists and producers who remain in the World Service are being “invited”, as never before, to improve their English, this is indicative of the shift in emphasis. The entire staff of this institution will be relocated in 2012 to a new building, alongside colleagues from the domestic production of the BBC. In the new newsroom, it is expected that World Service journalists will be working on British domestic and international content both in their own languages ​​and English, and through multiple platforms.

10 An open field

The cream of World Service Latin American correspondents now has the obligation to work for an English audience. The reduced staff of BBC Mundo may be forced to revise their ambitions in Spanish. International media like CNN en Español (US) or El Pais (Spain), would appear to have a freer field of competition, as without the potential presence of a service that one day could have aspired to cast a shadow over them.