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Aiming to reach an audience of a half billion in five years, the BBC is expanding the outreach of the World Service. Language services and coverage will be added through a GB£ 289 million funding boost through 2022. It is the largest service increase for BBC World Service since the 1940’s.
New daily radio newscasts targeting North Korea will begin in April. The Russian service will be augmented, both broadcast and digital. Regional programming through BBC Arabic will also be extended.
“Through war, revolution and global change, people around the world have relied on the World Service for independent, trusted, impartial news,” said BBC World Service director Francesca Unsworth in a statement (November 15). “As an independent broadcaster, we remain as relevant as ever in the 21st century, when in many places there is not more free expression, but less.”
There are many government-funded international broadcasting outlets, some noteworthy and some notorious. Nearly all have moved in the last decade into digital platforms, some entirely. The BBC World Service continues to use shortwave radio to reach areas where other platforms are unavailable. (See more about international broadcasting here)
Unsurprising with the worldwide interest in the long US presidential campaign, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) annual impact report showed substantial year-on-year audience surges for its radio, TV and digital channels. Overall 278 million people accessed the various Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Middle East Broadcasting Network (MBN) and Radio Free Asia channels, a one year increase of 52 million. The BBG is the federal agency that charts of course for US international broadcasting.
"The unprecedented growth we've seen this year further illustrates the need for US international media particularly in parts of the world where access to balanced, impartial news is severely limited or non-existent," said BBG chief executive John Lansing in a statement (November 15). "In media markets increasingly dominated by disinformation and propaganda, more and more people are turning to BBG networks for fair, accurate, fact-based reporting.” VOA channels contributed almost all of the combined estimated weekly audience increases, with significant growth in Southeastern Asia, Latin America and Africa.
Union staff ended industrial action at all-news TV channel i-Télé this week. While strikes in France are renowned this was the longest involving a media outlet since 1968, 31 days. Both the Media Journalists Association (AJM) and owner Canal+ took hard lines on several issues, ranging from staffing and budgets to overall direction.
“People are exhausted in every way and on every side,” said Canal+ Groupe director Maxime Saada, quoted by challenges.fr (November 17). i-Télé will be renamed CNews and rebranded as a news-talk channel, “different without burdening the costs.” Sports will be added, and talk-shows. “We will remain a hot news channel.” (See more about TV news here)
Whatever remains of i-Télé the editorial staff will be considerably lighter. Several - some rather high profile - quit as the strike ended rather than accept the expected changes in direction, including the hiring of a controversial talk-show host. All of this comes as French news media gears up for next year’s presidential elections. The first round of party primary elections will be this weekend. (See more about media in France here)
TV news in France is rather robust. In addition to i-Télé there is BFM TV, LCI and public channel France Info TV, all more or less all-news. Major general interest channels TF1 and France Télévisions attract huge audiences to their news shows. And that’s just TV. Far-right US portal Breitbart News, buoyed by recent events, is expected to enter France shortly. (See more about elections and media here)
There’s a chance, said Reuters and Les Echos (November 10), that US TV network NBC News will become a shareholder in Euronews. Discussions are in that “exclusive negotiations” stage. If all this takes place, perhaps by the end of the year, Euronews ownership will be “a bit on the model of MSNBC,” the joint venture cable channel of NBC and Microsoft.
Euronews is a credible TV news network of channels in a dozen languages. It launched in 1993 under the auspices of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) with 21 European and North African public and State broadcasters as shareholders of varying dimension. Faced with “expand or die” two years ago, Egyptian telecom billionaire Naguib Sawiris invested €35 million in return for a 53% shareholding, public broadcasters stakes squeezed. As the story goes, the NBC News subsidiary of NBC/Universal is interested in a stake between 15% and 30%, public broadcaster shareholders again squeezed. (See more about TV news here)
Also coming to Europe is online portal Breitbart. Editor-in-chief Alex Marlow indicated to Reuters (November 9) expanded coverage for France and Germany through pages added to the Beitbart UK portal. It’s unclear whether or not this new outreach will be offered in national languages. (See more about online news here)
A font of gleeful alt-right conspiracy theories, Breitbart News filled - or fell into - a particular void. Former executive chairman Stephen Bannon became CEO of the Donald Trump campaign and, after that interesting turn of events, will become the senior White House strategist for communications. Its UK portal launched in 2014. "We believe that France is the place to be,” said Mr. Bannon, quoted by Les Echos (November 14), “with its young entrepreneurs (and) the women of the Le Pen family.”
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