Something new
- 2 Oct 08, 02:06 PM
On Wednesday evening, TV viewers in the US began to see something new from BBC World News; two bulletins of the best international news from the BBC, more tailored to a US audience and free to air through the American PBS network.
It's the start of a new partnership between us and KCET, the Southern California public television station, with a simple aim. To offer American viewers something they can't get anywhere else.
Fronted by Mike Embley in London, the two programmes are a showcase for the BBC's unrivalled international newsgathering power.
On day one Richard Galpin reported from Georgia as EU monitors arrived to begin observing a Russian withdrawal. From Brussels, our Europe Editor Mark Mardell explained how pressure on European banks was forcing countries to find new ways of safeguarding depositors' money. In Iraq, Hugh Sykes reported on the rise of the Awakening movement - former insurgents now fighting alongside rather than against US forces. And Jon Leyne in Tehran reported on a US phenomenon taking off in Iran - blogging.
The first day also posed us some challenges. How much should we be focussing on events within the US, given that we've pledged to offer something different to the US media? And how much coverage should there be of live events or breaking news? With the Senate debating the "bail-out Bill" while we went on air, both issues came together.
The answer - well if we're putting together a bulletin of the day's main global stories, then it would be perverse to leave out US stories. However, you can expect us to place them in a different context - so last night's Senate coverage was immediately followed by the story out of Europe, which I doubt was receiving much attention elsewhere in the US media. As for live coverage - given that we're offering PBS viewers a speedy round-up in 25 minutes, we won't devote much time to lengthy live coverage of events, but you can expect to see breaking news reported as fast as any other network.
Will the programme prove as popular as before? The early signs are good. More than 80% of US viewers will have access to BBC World News through PBS and we hope the revamped programme will actually deliver a bigger audience to us.
Plus we'll continue to broadcast Matt Frei's World News America programme on BBC America, which is the other part of our two-pronged strategy to best serve the US audience.
By coincidence, it marked its first anniversary on air on Wednesday. In its inaugural year, the programme won a prestigious Peabody Award, signed veteran newsman Ted Koppel as Contributing Analyst and had correspondents reporting first-hand from the scene of numerous international breaking news stories, from the assassination of Benazir Bhutto to the current economic crisis hitting markets across the globe.
Richard Porter is head of BBC World News
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