75 years of World Service
Seventy five years ago this week the 大象传媒's first director general, Lord Reith, launched what was then called the 大象传媒's Empire Service with these words:
"Radio is an instrument of almost incalculable importance in the social and political life of the community. Its influence will more and more be felt in the daily life of the individual, in almost every sphere of human activity, in affairs national and international鈥 It has been our resolve that the great possibilities and influences of the medium should be exploited to the highest human advantage鈥 The service as a whole is dedicated to the best interests of mankind."
When he spoke, radio was a relatively new technology, much as the internet is today. In the 75 years since, 大象传媒 World Service, as it is now called, has attempted to live up to the high aspirations behind its launch.
It is no longer focused on Empire or Commonwealth of course. Its purpose today is to connect Britain and the world with a modern, genuinely international, service of high quality news and information. Global broadcasting is undergoing unprecedented growth with new international channels opening almost every month - , , , from Iran and many more.
So it is an achievement that today more than 180 million people each week listen to the World Service - the highest audiences there have ever been - and tell us it is still the most trusted international news service anywhere.
That's testament to the extent the service has developed during its lifetime. During World War II, "London Calling" was the iconic station identification - highly valued by audiences across Europe. Today, we have interactive discussion programmes like World Have Your Say, taking calls, texts, e-mails and letters from people in regions as disparate as Chennai and California, Kampala and Kuala Lumpur. Globalisation and international issues from terrorism to climate change, from failed states to economics and trade, to sport and entertainment link countries and cultures more than ever before.
The programmes are available in 33 languages including English, on traditional short wave, re-broadcast on FM stations around the world, on the internet, with sites in all 33 languages, and from 2008, on television in Arabic and Farsi.
To mark the 75th anniversary, there is a season of programmes about free speech debating the principles behind freedom of speech, looking at how news is produced, and discussing how international media can connect people around the world.
A , released today, shows that opinion around the world is divided on free speech. While an average of 56% across all countries think that freedom of the press is important to ensure a free society, 40% believe that controlling what is reported may sometimes be necessary for the greater good. Of the countries where press freedom is most highly valued, Western developed countries are more critical of how honestly and accurately the news is reported. This suggests that the broadcasting of news and information around the world is as important - and contentious - today as it has ever been.
Comments
Some years ago I spent 3 years in the USA. Listening to the world service on short wave kept me appraised of world developments as well as UK, a far superior service to the farcical USA localised broadcasts. Since returning I am told the 大象传媒 world service has been withdrawn across the USA. Is this correct? If so what is the reason? Have USA authorities made any approaches to the 大象传媒 / UK government about broadcasts in the USA. If so, this does have serious implications re your front page 'Free Speech' item. Is there more to this than meets the eye?
The World Service is admirable and a tribute for everything the 大象传媒 should stand for. It is a pity that the same noble interest in reaching out to the whole of mankind is now no longer practised on the 大象传媒 website, as the new 大象传媒 Charter effectively divides web users into those in the UK and those not. The former, it is stated, should not subsidise the latter. The World Service will no doubt go the same way eventually, driven into extinction by mean-spirited Little England licence payers, over-ambitious 大象传媒 directors chasing the latest television fad, and a bean-counting mentality that chisels endlessly away at everything that once made the 大象传媒 great.
I recall very clearly my first experience of the value of World Service broadcasts. I was in Sri Lanka on holiday in the early 80s, staying there with a friend, when the country was overtaken by "communal violence". It was very frightening.
The World Service broadcasts in English did not come on air until 1700 each day and only then did we know what was going on where we were.
Later, when I went to work for the World Service, I already had first hand experience of its value and the extent of its reach in good times and bad.
You talk of Wstern developped countries being critical of how accurately and honestly the news is reported. This is unarguably true (I do not come from a Western country) when you listen to CNN, FOX News, France24, Radio France international, CBS and the VOA, some nausea bundles you up.
Luckily, the "大象传媒 World Service" is there to save us from the usual bias junks from those so called "mainstream media"
Close the 大象传媒 for 24 hours and the aforementioned "news" organs will turn the world into turmoil.
This is a reporters opinion, not just anu other opinion
Peter Ware,
The shortwave transmissions to the USA were stopped about 5 years ago - fewer and fewer were listening on shortwave and the costs became prohibitive. However the World Service is available on XM and Sirius satellite radio in the US, programmes like Newshour are rebroadcast on a number of NPR stations and, of course, people can listen via the 大象传媒 website.
The 大象传媒's World Service is synonymous to honest appraisal and reporting of truthful news to a massive audience that can not rely on their national media.
This state of affairs has become worse with the incorporation of news sources that serve hidden agendas of their shareholders, as has become evident with national and international events during the last ten years.
Let us pray that the 大象传媒 World Service will continue as such!
My parents(Irish/Iraqi) in Baghdad had the Shortwave radio tuned to the World Service all the time. It was through Paddy Feeny that I discovered the Beatles, listened live to the '66 World Cup final and hid in my room to note down the Top 20 charts when I should have been studying. After leaving iraq I was never without a shortwave radio for the same set of frequencies. Today,at 53, living in Geneva,, my commute entails switching on my mp3 player to listen to the podcasts of programs I'd miss otherwise-FOOC, Documentary archives...etc. The 大象传媒 world service has become 2nd nature. And there's never been a rival, for me, in quality, diversity and depth. Thank you to all who've made this happen.
To Rob: The World Service is not financed from the TV licence receipts. The money comes, essentially, from the Foreign Office. It's called a "Grant in Aid", if I remember correctly...
Congratulations, and keep up the good work.
a few years back i took a bike tour through france. i stayed only in campgrounds, so i had no internet access and my understanding of spoken french was in it's early stages. i brought a short-wave radio with me and listened to the world service every night. it was my link to what was happening in the world, in a familiar tongue, that presented no barriers between myself and the news. in short, it was a link to sanity. i can't imagine what my trip would have been like without the world service. thank you bbc!
Born and raised in New York with a better sense of the world, as my father taught me about shortwave radio and NPR. Then started to listen to Sirius Satellite Radio and 大象传媒 World Service.
Always had a deeper respect for the service than any other news service in the States, which is one reason why I even support putting a few dollars toward keeping the 大象传媒 website up for non-stop international usage.
Cheers to another 75 years!
For me personally, having lived in Holland for 30 years, and now living in the Philippines, the 大象传媒 World service was very important -and I listened almost continuously at home, once I had discovered it. I was particularly impressed by their live response to emailed reactions to their programmes.
Unfortunately, now I have lost all contact and faith in the service.
In the first place, in the Philippines, I can no longer recieve the World Service via radio and I do not have a broadband connection.
As if such basic (politicised) "technical" problems were not enough, I am rapidly loosing faith in the "content". Indeed, the new World Service newsletter did raise the issue of "old" versus "new" technology. I did respond, and tried to contexulize the problem in the framework of a wider technological and cultural divide.
However, I have the very strong impression that the problem was not taken seriously at all. From the newsletter, it seems that many people were concerend about the loss of the radio -including the fact that in an "emergency" situation the radio is likely to continue functioning long after internet services have become (for any reason) unavailable. However, there seems to be no reaction from the World Service -that still seems to believe that everybody must get broadband -and bad luck to those who cannot (or will not) get it. This is what I call "digital feudalism" because it is (a government service) forcing people to use commercial (often monopoly) services -which they otherwise might not wish to use.
As others have pointed out -the demise of the World service is a great loss to those who believe in honest reporting. My experience of 大象传媒 webnews in relation to local experience in the Philippines is that the 大象传媒 reporting is a disgracefully biased distorted presentation of dogma and propaganda disguised as "facts". The World servicve was much better in this respect -but now seems to have also given in to the journalisitc ego that somehow regards the "story" as their personal product, as they hop from one sensational story to another -with little concern for what happens outside their own little "story".
I'm afraid that within this context, all the bruhaha around "press freedom" seems rather ridiculus. What we need is "public freedom" to hear the truth -not "press freedom' to spread the propaganda.
I am not too excited about 大象传媒 World Service's government funding and obligation to meet some Royal Charter. 大象传媒 is not totally objective as it is run by human beings after all. But compared to other State funded shortwave or international broadcasting services from Iran, Middle East,China, Russia etc., 大象传媒 does not bore listeners with bludgeons of blatant propaganda.
Another good thing about 大象传媒 World Service being government funded is that you would not normally bow to commercial considerations or pressures. And I hope you will not be as weak kneed as Canadian 大象传媒 called CBC and chicken out by not broadcasting investigative reporting on something like Chinese brutalities against Falun Gong members or any other atrocities of some powerful government against its citizens.
That said, I also warn you that your regional language services end up being broadcast by the privileged ethnic, religious, class majorities from those regions and thus contain an unwholesome agenda even you may not be aware of, as you do not understand the language yourself. You need some editorial policy that specifically oversees everything that is going on in your regional language services. Again, I am glad English service is free from such contamination.
No mention of that embarrassing 29% score in a certain survey (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=501137&in_page_id=1770), eh Ricky? Burying bad news again?
* 1.
* At 03:48 PM on 10 Dec 2007,
* Peter Ware wrote:
"Is there more to this than meets the eye?"
Actually, I think there is much, much, more that never is allowed to reach the eye.
The possibility for an individual person or company to operate an independant radio station -and/or to build a device for listening to the radio is infinitely greater than the psssibility of providing a pirate internet service, or reciving internet via a simple home built apparatus. The chain of comnnection and control involved in digital communication is far greater than in any other previous system. One simply cannot operate without satelite and cable systems, Internet Providers, software companies and other commercial systems.
A radio can be built by anybody with knowledge and the right material. However, most of the communication systems being forced upon us today involve patented technology. So by relying on digital technology -the public is being forced into the arms of a few (monopolistic) globalised companies -largely outside local government control.
This is not only so with media. While the Berlin wall still existed, it was possible to go to any large Dutch railway station and buy a train ticket to places behind the "iron curtain". Now the artificial political barrier has disapeared -but buying an international train ticket in Amsterdam has become much more difficult and now seems to require internet and a mobile phone. I have also seen an elderly woman in a Dutch bank who was in tears because she could not withdraw money from the bank without using the ATM -although she was scared of loosing her card in public. One might also point out that ATM machines have been fingered as being a major cause for debt amongst those with little financial discipline. Even Davis' 大象传媒 blog talks happily about the need for American consumers to spend money (which they may not have) in order to "save" the world economy. In my view (seeing the poverty and lack of good nutricion in many parts of the world) forced consumerism is a disgusting state of affairs, which is now apparently seen by most western intellectuals as being "normal" and acceptable.
Apparently, what needs to be kept out of view is that the "free market" is a myth -and that the world is currently being re-feudalised by global commercial giants.
Unless this fact is openly admitted and discussed through the (mainstream) media -then "journalistic freedom" (and "democracy") would also seem to be nothing more than myths.
As a soldier I used carry a SW radio and booklet with all the 大象传媒 worldwide frequencies.
I would not dream of it these days, listening to the 大象传媒's steady stream of left wing and often enemy propaganda, would be awful for moral and so detatched from the version of events I would be witnessing
Anyone who would disagree with the assertion that the 大象传媒 World Service News is the best quality news around almost certainly works for a rival news service. It's a welcome island of quality in a vast ocean of dumbing down, and long may it stay that way.
I am, however, deeply disappointed that short-wave transmissions seem to be being so drastically cut. Although I can listen to the WS on my digital radio at home, I can hardly ever get a signal on my short-wave radio when I'm abroad any more.
What a shame.
my most memorable experience with the world service was the dawn i heard about princess Diana's death. it was the first time the BBc had an impact on me and from there, my radio has never moved a dial away from 101.3.( this is the frequency in Ghana)when it comes to radio, 大象传媒 is my standard. i am sure wherever Reith is, he will never regret his invention and proclamation.
The World Service must persuade itself and then the Government that short wave transmissions must be maintained and in some cases restored. For Africa, South America, Indonesia and the Philippines it is essential.
The 大象传媒 must also ensure that its journalist and editors are "retrained" upon joining the World Service. I perceive standards are slipping towards national standards that do not meet the required supranational standards of the World Service. I have always listened to the WS, even in the UK, when I wanted to know what is going on in the world. It is still worth doing this but the content is not as broad as it was some years ago.
The 大象传媒 World Service still remains one of the best British achievements in the wider world along with, bizarrely, the Government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. Two organisations of which a Briton can be rightly proud. Here's to the next 75 years (of short wave please) and well managed fishing.
Adam i can assure you i dont work for a rival organisation and i believe the 大象传媒 to have a a news service which has virtually no relation to the truth of the events they cover
Its not just rivals who critic the 大象传媒
From the mid 1980鈥檚 to the mid 1990鈥檚, when the 大象传媒 domestic service was doing all it could to get the Conservatives out of power, the world service bulletins were the only quality source of independent news for the UK. 3 or 4 years ago the 大象传媒 World Service started to emulate the 鈥渨orld according to the 大象传媒鈥 style of the domestic service, airing its liberal/Guardian flavour of 鈥渘ews with attitude.
People overseas must now think we are all green, eu-luvving, liberal softies.
As far as press freedom is concerned, how about the listeners鈥 and viewers鈥 freedom to hear unfettered facts instead of the censored and spinned version that we get these days?
What a great pity that it is so difficult to get itin Britain, except when Radio 4 goes off the air for four hours or so! Even now I have a DAB radio I can't find it as a 'stand alone' service.
What, no mention in your post about those of us who DABble in the world service here in the UK??
I have a feeling the internet has grossly overtaken the 大象传媒 world service. Like it or not it's true. No one is going out to buy radio anymore, especially sw radio. No company can make a profit out of sw radio so why should the 大象传媒 keep hammering away at it? Truth is, the fastest way to find anything out is the internet. Even terrorists in our war zones are able to get a perminent link up. Let's move on and save some money for our poor government!
"75 Years of World Service"
I never would have guessed. Mr. Sambrook, you don't look a day over 65.