BBC World Service

The BBC World Service is one of the most widely recognised international broadcasters of radio programming, transmitting in 43 languages to around 150 million people throughout the world. The English service broadcasts 24 hours a day. Unlike the BBC's main radio and television services, which are primarily funded by a licence fee, the World Service is funded by the British Government through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, although it is expected to remain politically neutral.

Statistics and languages

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

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• English — 39 million
• Hindi — 16.1 million
• Urdu — 10.4 million
• Arabic — 12.4 million.

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

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Besides English, the BBC World Service broadcasts in Albanian, Arabic, Azeri, Bengali, Bulgarian, Burmese, Caribbean English, Cantonese, Croatian, Czech, French, Greek, Hausa, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Kazakh, Kinyarwanda/Kirundi, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mandarin, Nepali, Pashto, Persian, Polish, Portuguese for Africa and Brazil, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovene, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Tamil, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, and Vietnamese.

Related Topics:
Albanian - Azeri - Bengali - Bulgarian - Burmese - Caribbean English - Cantonese - Croatian - Czech - French - Greek - Hausa - Hungarian - Indonesian - Kazakh - Kinyarwanda - Kirundi - Kyrgyz - Macedonian - Mandarin - Nepali - Pashto - Persian - Polish - Portuguese - Africa - Brazil - Romanian - Russian - Serbian - Sinhala - Slovak - Slovene - Somali - Spanish - Swahili - Tamil - Thai - Turkish - Ukrainian - Uzbek - Vietnamese

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

Related Topics:
German - Dutch - Finnish - French - Hebrew - Italian - Japanese - Malay

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