[HCDX] BBC World Service radio attracts record listeners

["Mike Terry" <miketerry73@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

London
Agence France Presse
15 May 2006

Record numbers of radio listeners are tuning into the BBC World Service, the
public broadcaster said on Monday.

The service is attracting an average of 163 million listeners per week to
its 33 language services during 2006, up from 149 million last year.

The new high beats a previous weekly record high of 153 million listeners,
achieved in 2001, the British Broadcasting Corporation said.

The rise comes despite the BBC axing 10 of its foreign language radio
services in October last year, largely in former Communist Europe.

Global weekly audiences for the service's English language broadcasts have
risen to 42 million listeners from 39 million in 2005.

Audience figures are significantly up in Nigeria, Indonesia, Kenya, India
and Nepal, the BBC said. Recent political unrest in Nepal has pushed the
number of listeners up to 3.7 million from 2.6 million last year.

"This record-breaking audience is an outstanding achievement against the
background of fierce competition, fast-developing technology and rapidly
changing audience demands in many media markets," BBC World Service director
Nigel Chapman said.

"The challenges ahead for BBC World Service remain formidable, as they do
for all broadcasters, but this is a strong and welcome indication that we
are not only strengthening our impact in priority areas but are flourishing
in the multimedia age."

Two countries registering significant falls, however, are Bangladesh and
Pakistan. Audience numbers in Bangladesh dived by 4.4 million to 8.6
million, blamed on a lack of FM frequency in the country.

During the past six months the World Service has closed its language
services in Hungarian, Bulgarian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Slovak, Slovene,
Kazakh and Thai.

Cost savings are being used to fund an Arabic television news channel, set
for launch in 2007. It will be the BBC's first publicly funded global
television service.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world_business/view/208358/1/.html


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