[Swprograms] BBCWS director replies to criticism of language service closures

[Mike Barraclough <softbulletin1@xxxxxxxxx>]

We believe in freedom, but we also need listeners

The BBC World Service must stay in tune with its
global audience, writes Nigel Chapman

Thursday November 10, 2005
The Guardian

Peter Preston misrepresents the arguments surrounding
the closure of some BBC World Service language
services (World disservice, October 31). He says that
I believe Europe no longer matters to us; that we're
moving out and moving on.

However, the decision to close the 10 services was
taken after considerable thought - taking into account
three broad criteria: relative geopolitical
importance; the availability of alternative
independent media similar to the BBC; and the current
audience size and prospects for the future.

The closures are necessary to fund a package of
radical new investment which includes an Arabic
television service; increased depth and presence in
new media, including interactivity and video-on-demand
on our language websites; increased funding to ensure
better FM radio distribution; and the modernisation of
some international bureaux.

Preston says that media freedom is still a constant
struggle in Bulgaria and Croatia. Yet in those
countries the BBC's argument was less about the state
of the media (though both have broadly improved since
1999) and more about the number of listeners - about
2% of the population each week, according to BBC
surveys. It is hard to justify millions of pounds of
investment when the audience is telling us, despite
good distribution and high-quality programmes, that
they don't need us as much as we would like to believe
- and in particular when there are demonstrably
greater audience needs elsewhere, such as the Middle
East, Asia and Africa.

Preston also claims that people's access to free media
was behind the closure of the Kazakh service. But
here, no one would argue that there is a strong
indigenous independent press. The critical factor was
poor audibility. There have been no FM partners for
the BBC in Kazakhstan recently - and, as a result, a
very low audience, less than 0.3% of the population
each week. Given that most of these listeners already
use the World Service Russian service, we cannot
justify our investment in Kazakhstan.

In Europe, use of English is growing rapidly. In all
the countries where language services will close later
this year, the BBC's audience for its English output -
on radio, television and online - is growing, often to
levels which now match the audiences of the language
services. Those schedules include specialist coverage
of European issues: the notion that "Europe doesn't
matter" to the BBC any longer is simply untrue. With
our strong newsgathering presence, we are committed to
following the impact of EU entry on the new member
states and the effect these changes have on European
institutions.

What would be a tragedy, to use Preston's words?
Failing to respond to changing audience needs in our
top priority markets, by ignoring the importance of
television and new media as well as radio. There the
real risks lie; the World Service needs to produce
news and information in the right media for each
market. Carrying on with the current portfolio of
language services would prevent us meeting this
challenge.

· Nigel Chapman is director of the BBC World Service

(Media Guardian)


	
	
		
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