Why the World Service still matters

It's easy to forget sometimes that when people in Britain and people outside talk about the BBC, they have in mind two very different entities: while we might be thinking of Jonathan Ross, Top Gear, The Archers and Chris Moyles, what they have in mind is almost certainly the more measured tones of the BBC World Service. In organisational terms, the World Service is a gnat to the BBC's behemoth; but in terms of audience, the analogy has to be reversed.

This year, the World Service's estimated weekly radio audience hit a record 183 million – an increase of more than 20 million on the year before. That's not just a bigger audience than the BBC's domestic services could ever hope to get, it's three times the entire British population.

A reminder of the World Service's importance came last week when Alan Johnston, celebrating his release from captivity, thanked all those who had sent him messages of support over the radio: he had been sustained by the World Service throughout his four months as a hostage, listening for up to 18 hours a day. And it is to the World Service that he will repair now, after time off to recuperate, taking up a production post in London. The World Service website and radio programmes were bombarded with messages of good will.

To many of its fans, the World Service represents all that is best not just about the BBC but about Britain. Ten years ago, when Birtist reforms at the BBC threatened the Service's character, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama were among those who put their names to a "Save the BBC" campaign. The Nigerian author Ben Okri wrote angrily of "a priceless asset" being thrown away: "I cannot think of any other nation, or indeed any civilisation, that has an organisation like the BBC World Service... It is the worldwide friend of the intelligent and the poor, the oppressed and even the complacent."

What inspires such devotion is the Service's reputation for impartiality: even in parts of the world where the British Government is resented it is seen as independent of the British Government. This is all the more impressive when you consider that, historically and fiscally, it is tied far more closely to the Government than the rest of the BBC. Though it started in 1932 as the BBC Empire Service, it was the Second World War that saw its flowering: by the end of the war it was broadcasting in every major European language and had become the sole reliable source of news for tens of millions of people living under Nazi occupation. With the start of the Cold War, it continued to play the role of the only honest man in the house, broadcasting to dissidents behind the Iron Curtain, in Poland, Hungary, the Soviet Union itself. As Nigel Chapman, the current director, points out, people would risk the gulag to listen to BBC news.

So for most of its history, the World Service has been engaged in a kind of propaganda. That's reflected in the fact that, unlike the rest of the BBC, theoretically insulated from governmental interference by the licence fee, it gets its money direct from Whitehall in the form of a grant-in-aid from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (£245 million in the last financial year).

But it is the softest form of propaganda imaginable: it boosts Britain by refusing to boost Britain, and instead maintaining a stance of impartiality. During the Falklands War, Mrs Thatcher complained of the BBC's habit of referring to "British" rather than "our" forces; the FCO – always aloof from the rest of Government – knows that studied neutrality like that is not a fault, but a strength.

The polls that the BBC incessantly commissions show that even in parts of the world where the British Government is disliked intensely, the British Broadcasting Corporation scores well on measures like "objectivity" and "trust". Perhaps we have lost confidence in the idea of Britain as a nation that is modest, reserved, fair-minded; a few hours listening to the World Service can reassure you that that is exactly what we are.

But not everything is lovely in the garden. BBC4 has been broadcasting London Calling, a series of documentaries about the World Service by Neil Cameron (the final programme is due for transmission this Thursday). Cameron's films are largely admiring in tone, but they show a breathless organisation, convulsed by change and struggling to live within its means. Lately, the World Service has had to cope with several different kinds of upheaval – geopolitical, technological, bureaucratic.

First, the Iron Curtain came down, and with it vanished one of the World Service's central raisons d'etre. Audiences for the Eastern European services declined slowly at first – after the short-lived coup of 1991, the Russian president, Mikhail Gorbachev, said that during the three days he was kept under house arrest in the Crimea the World Service was the best source of information (there was some nitpicking over whether it was the quality of the news gathering or simply the quality of reception that he was praising). But more recently the decline became downright precipitous. In Russia, the audience fell by 95 per cent, to less than one million; and then the former enemies started joining the EU and Nato, at which point broadcasting the truth to their citizenry started to look a little pushy.

Earlier this year, the Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Polish, Slovak and Slovene services were all closed down, along with the Thai and Kazakh. Meanwhile, a whole new set of fissures has emerged in global politics.

Along with political change has come technological change. For years, the World Service transmitted mainly on short-wave, which gives you a fuzzy sound, and is vulnerable to bad weather, but allows you to broadcast over vast distances.

A short-wave radio is a cheap, uncomplicated piece of kit. For a certain nerdish type of listener – I'm talking about myself – the pleasure of listening to the World Service is bound up with memories of late nights fiddling with the dial, straining through the whistle and swish of the short-wave signal to hear "Lilliburlero" (quite why the World Service has a 17th-century jig with anti-Catholic lyrics as its theme tune has never been satisfactorily explained). Nowadays, though, it's all FM and podcasts, CNN and Al Jazeera: it turns out that many people don't actually enjoy the whistles. Bit by bit, the BBC is getting out of the short-wave business, and putting the money into TV, the web and partnerships with local FM stations to carry World Service programming – Nigel Chapman brags "Go to Afghanistan, and in Kabul and larger towns you will hear Pashto and English crystal clear, like listening to Radio 1 in north London." (I think he overestimates the ease with which you can get Radio 1 in north London, what with the pirates.)

There has been an undercurrent of bureaucratic menace. This began in 1996 when John Birt announced that the World Service, which has always sat in isolation in Bush House at Aldwych, a mile from Broadcasting House, was to be integrated within the BBC proper. Its English language news, for example, would be produced by the regular BBC news department.

The ensuing outcry probably owed more to the manner of the announcement – it was the first anybody at the Service had heard of the plan – than to its substance. But it's undoubtedly true that the Service's special character has been a little diluted by the shift. It always had a slight air of formality, which I put down to the need to broadcast standardised pronunciation and vocabulary for the benefit of listeners picking the language up. But these days it frequently has a matey, jokey air. To me, it lacks some of the gravitas it used to have – a tone that said, without being bossy, "We are telling you something you need to hear."

This goes along with a new style of station ident that replaces "Lilliburlero" much of the time – a whooshing, brassy, virtually unsingable set of notes, to my mind already sounding horribly dated in a way that the antique "Lilliburlero" never could.

But to say that the World Service is not what it was is perhaps to say nothing of interest: what is? As Nigel Chapman says, the central justification for the World Service is still that "the best estimate of truth is being offered you, often in regimes where that is in very sort supply." It still broadcasts in 33 languages, and remains the central source of truth in what he calls "lifeline countries": closed societies such as Burma, "failed states" such as Somalia and, until not long ago Afghanistan, Rwanda in the past, the Democratic Republic of Congo now. Its political importance and independence can be measured by the fact that it is still jammed in China, and that President Putin has shut off its access to FM transmitters in Moscow and St Petersburg.

And though it has abandoned some markets, the BBC's reach remains extraordinary. In 2001, another "Save the BBC" campaign was started in the US, in response to the news that shortwave broadcasts to North America were ceasing; and there are, no doubt, parts of the Midwest where you can only hear the World Service if you have a decent internet connection. But in New York a month ago, I was delighted to find I could listen over breakfast, because the news programmes were carried by the local college FM station. The BBC's figures suggest, astoundingly, that 25 per cent of "opinion formers" on the US eastern seaboard listen one way or another. Many more have access to BBC World television or the BBC's news website (one of the best ways of learning about the world, even if they do give a bizarre prominence to news about video games.)

The savings from shutting down eastern European services are being ploughed into two new TV services. This year, an Arabic service starts up – apart from the obvious political imperatives, the BBC has a long association with Arabic broadcasting: it was the second language service, after English. Next year, Farsi for Afghanistan and Iran. You can't say these aren't needed.

The World Service has its weaknesses – business news is not great and, it rarely offers the deep analysis of international affairs that was once its stock in trade – but it is the only truly global broadcaster, the only serious player in radio, TV and new technology. It is, too, in its openness, its refusal to take sides, a good advert for Britain: a better one, perhaps, than we deserve.

A glance at the world service

BBC World Service celebrates its 75th birthday this December. It is currently going through a golden period, with its highest ever audiences and better scores from its millions of listeners for its objectivity, accuracy, relevance and trust than any of its major international competitors.

However the world is not standing still. Powerful forces are putting increasing pressure on all international broadcasters. It is the most unpredictable news environment ever, dominated by technological change and the need to respond to hugely complex developments.

At the same time, it is a time of great opportunity for BBC World Service. People across the world are more interdependent than ever. Issues like the globalised economy, climate change, drugs & crime, and HIV/AIDS all will require common solutions to some degree. Communication and dialogue – using the emerging technology to the full - will be crucial.

Partisan and biased sources of information - which in turn fuel mistrust and often downright hostility - are not slow to step into the vacuum.

In this complex and unstable world, BBC World Service's two-fold mission (to bring impartial, accurate news and information to audiences around the globe; and to provide a trusted and open forum for debate and dialogue) is growing ever more important.

In the past 10 years BBC World Service has grown weekly radio audiences from 138 million to a record 183 million. It is available in the higher quality audibility of FM in 152 capital cities. Over that period it has invested in online services across all 33 language services and achieved huge growth, from three million monthly page impressions in late 1998 to 763 million by March 2007 – that's 38.5 million individual monthly users.

New horizons beckon: a BBC Arabic Television service is due to launch this autumn and a Farsi language television service for Iran will launch next spring.

Although we can't predict the events that will shape the world over the next 75 years, we know our traditional journalistic values of accuracy, impartiality, and editorial independence will help us remain the best-known and most-respected voice in international broadcasting, bringing significant benefit to Britain.

The international broadcaster. By Richard Sambrook, head of World Service

* The BBC World Service's weekly global audience is currently at an all-time high, with 183 million listeners spread over 42 countries.

* The Service broadcasts in 33 languages. Its offerings in Persian, Arabic, Urdu, Spanish and Portuguese attract the biggest audiences.

* It employs 1,736 full-time journalists. All of the BBC's foreign correspondents are expected to make their work available to all BBC News outlets.

* Among the most popular programmes in English are 'The World Today', 'Network

Africa' and 'News Today'.

* The World Service was originally known as the BBC Empire Service. It was set up in 1932 in an effort to persuade the people of Australia to remain in the British empire.

* The Foreign Office subsidises the Service to the tune of £239.5 million per year.

* The World Service's main rivals on the international scene include Voice of America, a broadcaster established in 1948 and funded by the US government; Radio France Nationale; and Al Jazeera, which is financed by the government of Qatar.

* Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary general, declared in 1999 that "the BBC World Service is perhaps Britain's greatest gift to the world this century".