Why the changes?

The purpose of these changes is to enable the World Service to maintain its pre-eminence as a broadcaster in an increasingly multi-media, digital age.

That means delivering news and information on multiple platforms - TV, radio and new media (including the web and mobile devices) - in many developed and developing world markets, where audience need demands it.

In a world of fixed resources until the next Spending Review outcome (July 07 for the financial year 2008/09), it also means intensifying our provision in fewer places and withdrawing vernacular language services from areas where audience need has declined.

Will the closures mean that we are no longer a "World" Service?

The BBC's global service remains in English - in television, radio and online. This is where, in the past, we have been seen as a 'world' service internationally. This will continue.

Nonetheless, vernacular services are, and will continue to be, important. BBC World Service will still have 33 out of 43 services (75%). Indeed, we have invested heavily in the expansion of radio and online services over the past few years, particularly in the geopolitically important areas of the Middle East and wider Islamic world and areas covered by the Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Indonesian language services.

Going forward we want to ensure our Grant-in-Aid funded services deliver impact in the market in relation to the cost of doing so. In future we will have an even stronger focus on areas of

• geopolitical importance, i.e. how significant and important the country currently is and is likely to be on the global stage,

• need for information, i.e. how much need there is for impartial, high quality news and information due to political oppression, economic deprivation or market failure

• current and potential audience impact. Given the increasing costs of maintaining impact across a wide range of services, we have to prioritise. Our intention is to be even clearer about our target audiences in the future to ensure we achieve and maintain impact given our finite resources.

What other factors have influenced this change?

• Responding to a fast changing media landscape
• Clear priorities
• Finite resources

In recent years, the BBC's news and information have been available to people around the world in ways unthinkable just 20 years ago. The growth of satellite, cable and online have made turned the world into an information village where distances are obliterated by the sheer speed of communications.

	New technologies mean the BBC can reach wider audiences

Potentially more people have access to the BBC than ever before. And the BBC has impressively built its online presence to become one of the world's most respected online sites and at the same time used new technologies to reach people with its radio programmes.

Looking forward, our task is to match increasingly our rich content to the best available means of distribution to audiences around the world.

Does this mean that World Service is pulling out of providing radio output to concentrate on vernacular television?

No, it doesn't. In some markets BBC World Service is accelerating towards becoming a full multi-media broadcaster on radio, TV, online and other emerging platforms in order to serve better our audiences' rapidly changing media consumption needs and demands.

However, we need to review constantly our portfolio of services to make sure that they are responding to changing geopolitical conditions and the international media market place. In some markets radio will often be the dominant medium. In others, Brazil for example, online listening is our dominant delivery platform.

Radio is one of the key pillars of how the BBC's Global News Division's services are distributed. We currently attract 149 million listeners each week on radio. This is better than any other international radio broadcaster. Our radio services are particularly strong in Africa, Asia and the Middle East and they've had considerable investment over recent years.

But we must also reflect that audience needs are changing and technology is moving rapidly. Shortwave is also declining at a fast pace and if we don't change we will die.

One of the key points of this package is that we are continuing to invest in further FM distribution. This has been one of the key successes of the last 15 years: we now get a third of our audiences by this delivery method and are now in 146 capital cities.

We are exploring new means of radio distribution, including satellite and cable, mobile phones and DRM in priority markets. These have also been successful. Television is a logical move in a priority market where it is the dominant medium for news but Arabic radio is also successful in the region.

The death of radio has been predicted in Britain and the US since television became popular in the 1950s. Fifty years later, and radio is the most popular medium in the UK and the US. It is important and will remain important.

What will be the impact on the BBC's journalistic reputation and brand of 'abandoning' some language services?

We believe that the BBC's reputation, which has developed over the past 50 years or more, will remain strong. Our legacy rests on the trust that the public places in our services, the quality of our news and information, our impartiality, objectivity and accuracy.

The World Service has left a rich legacy of freedom of expression and the media landscape of each of these countries is stronger and more mature than when we first launched our services. This is in no small part due to the contribution made by the BBC World Service language services in each country.

The decision to close services has been taken because of the need to reprioritise our operations to reflect the changing geo-political situation – similar to the reasons why we launched services in these countries in the first place.

It also takes into account our strengthened presence in English around the world, on radio, on television through BBC World and online and that our services are used by key audiences in those countries.

Do the benefits of launching limited TV services outweigh the loss of global presence as a result of language service closures?

The world is changing rapidly. Audience demands, technology, competition and de-regulation are having a massive impact on the international media landscape. The rise of television as a media platform is dramatic and by 2010, television penetration will be near universal outside rural areas in the less developed world.

We have to respond. We have done so in the past by investing and enhancing our radio services– for instance across the Arabic world, Persian and Pashto services. Radio is and will continue to be important. However, television is the dominant platform for international news.

The BBC is approaching the media landscape changes on a multi-media basis – using BBC World television, BBC World Service radio, our international facing online offer and other new media platforms like mobile phones.

But the development of an increasingly digitised media will lead to profound changes in the usage of news over the next five years and beyond.

Therefore we must continue to anticipate audience demands and changing patterns of media consumption. We believe vernacular television and online development are areas where we can have huge impact as part of a multi-media BBC Global News strategy.

Why are we spending so much money on broadcasting to the USA when they have massive exposure to free and independent media?

BBC World Service is not spending vast amounts of money broadcasting to the US; in fact BBC World Service receives some income from rebroadcasting partners to offset delivery costs. Audiences receive the same programming as the rest of the world from our English Service, aside from one programme. BBC World Service continues to co-produce the regional programme The World with WGBH Boston.

We have moved money that was spent on broadcasting short wave to the region in obtaining partnerships with the public radio network stations. We have also made ourselves available on other platforms, including digital satellite networks such as Sirius and XM, which has increased our availability in the country.

The increased usage of BBC World Service and BBC World in this country has also been attributed by commentators to the fact that we offer a distinctive news service with an international agenda appealing to a significant sector of the news audience.

In an increasingly polarised media market place, audiences appear to respond to our values of trust and impartiality. For example, around 25 per cent of opinion formers in Boston, New York and Washington listen to BBC World Service every week.

How many people will lose their jobs as a result of these changes?

It is currently forecast that there will be 236 overall job reductions from these restructuring proposals. However more job reductions will be announced after the impact of the restructuring on BBC News has been discussed with unions and staff.

The current forecast total is made up of 218 posts due to the closure of 10 language services (around 127 jobs in the UK and 91 overseas); and a further 18 posts will be lost in other reprioritisation, such as the Portuguese for Brazil service becoming available online only.

In all, around 201 new jobs have or will be created by the new investment. It is expected that 148 new jobs will be created by the new Arabic channel; 41 new posts for new media and interactive initiatives; and 12 in international offices like Delhi and Sao Paulo.

After detailed discussions with management in BBC News, we have agreed savings targets for News for the next two years. Over the past few years we have invested around £2 million in new initiatives in News: new posts, correspondents and programmes. We have also shielded our core News operations from much of the annual rounds of World Service efficiency savings.

Whilst we understand that news is the core essence of what we do, the law of diminishing returns means we can no longer protect News from the realities that other departments are facing.

We have asked BBC News to make proposals to save around £2.3 million over the next two years. This will come from new programming and scheduling, a reduction in some services, new and different ways of working and some reductions in our news gathering capacity. BBC News will be talking to staff and unions as soon as possible about the impact on jobs.

Further questions and answers

Launching Arabic television

The impact on the BBC's European coverage

Next steps