 | Professor Monojit Chatterji
Professor of Applied Economics, University of Dundee |
 | Bill Emmott
Former Editor, The Economist |
 | Sir Michael Perry, CBE
Former Chairman of Centrica plc |
 | Stewart Purvis, CBE
Former Chief Executive ITN |
This year the research commissioned by the
Consultative Group reviewed BBC World
Service output in English for Africa, Urdu,
Romanian, Persian and Spanish for South
America.
Overall we were satisfied that all BBC World
Service output reviewed this year was of a
good standard and that no significant concerns
were identified.
We were encouraged by the positive
comments made by the respondents to both
the radio and particularly the online output.This
was most notably the case for current listeners
and users of the services, but also pleasing was
the positive feedback from first-time users of
the services, particularly for the online output.
We found that BBC World Service continues to
be associated with the highest standards in
global news broadcasting. It is considered to be
authoritative and reliable and an excellent
source of detailed news and information,
especially on global affairs.
In light of recent polarising world events,
and opinions about those events, our
research provided an opportunity to gauge
how well BBC World Service was perceived
to have handled these difficult issues.We
were pleased to conclude that BBC World
Service has maintained its reputation for
impartiality and objectivity.There were no
accusations of bias on international issues
from the respondents. A few issues were
raised, however, at a national or regional level.
For example, in Africa some respondents
felt the BBC adopted a Western attitude
to Africa by regarding the continent as a
‘problem’. In Iran most notably, respondents
thought BBC World Service was a fairly
reliable service – more so than local stations
– but there was still some scepticism since
local stations suggest the BBC reports a
British line. However, Iranian respondents
recognised the value of BBC World Service in
providing an alternative voice, uncensored by
the Iranian government.
BBC World Service’s authenticity as an
international voice, reporting on global affairs,
was recognised across the countries we
examined. However at a more local level we
were also pleased to see the Urdu service
complimented on being highly in tune with
events in Pakistan; and the African service
winning praise for having a grass-roots African
feel to many programmes, such as Focus on
Africa and Africa Have Your Say, using African
voices from across the continent in a way that
other stations do not.
There has been increased competition from
new radio stations in many of the countries
reviewed this year, particularly in Africa,
Mexico and Pakistan. It was encouraging to
see that BBC World Service has retained its
image as a solid and reliable source of news
and that its journalism is regarded as providing
more detail than other radio stations, including
international competitors. However, we were
made aware that the proliferation of more
lively local stations was changing expectations
of news programmes (notably in Pakistan and
Africa); some younger non-listeners perceive
BBC World Service presentation to lack
dynamism and energy. It will be important
therefore to monitor the risk of BBC World
Service being moved by its listeners into a
more marginal role than it currently enjoys.
In our 2005 report, we noted that the culture
of interviewing had been raised by some
panellists as an issue, particularly what they felt
was an overly assertive attitude taken by
presenters towards their interviewees.This year,
we were pleased to note no such observations
and, in Mexico, respondents particularly
remarked on the expert handling of interviews
by professional, well-informed presenters whose
delivery was thought to be appropriately
serious and formal.
The content of bbcnews.com, bbcmundo.com
and bbcurdu.com was widely regarded as
comprehensive, detailed and, with a few
exceptions, the websites came across to
respondents as having a good mix of global
perspective and credibility on national and
regional news stories.The impartiality of the
BBC’s online news – while not above
question – was acknowledged and
appreciated. Notably, most respondents took
the impartiality of news reports on the
websites for granted.
For non-users of BBC World Service, this
research was the first time they had experienced
the online sites and radio output.The online sites
appealed to both non-users and users alike, to a
greater degree than we found BBC World
Service radio appealing to previous nonlisteners.
We note that respondents felt the
online service offered an accessible version of
the BBC brand that appealed widely.
We have asked BBC World Service to
consider a number of points raised by the
respondents in the area of presentation.
Whilst across the countries, the BBC websites
were on the whole regarded as clear,
consistent and easy to navigate – comparing
very favourably to other similar sites visited –
a minor number of respondents (consistent
across the countries) did complain about
over-busy, ‘cluttered’ home pages, which they
believed were lacking in colour. Respondents
in Mexico also cited difficulty at returning to
the bbcmundo.com home page.
We were encouraged by the strong perception
of educational value being derived from visiting
the site, above and beyond keeping in touch
with the news – something other comparative
websites tended not to offer. Examples were
sections that provided context and background,
such as the Country Profiles and the language
learning elements. In order to maximise the
potential of the site, we urged BBC World
Service management to address the claims
from users of bbcmundo.com that the
instructions for use of the ‘Learn English’ and
‘Participate’ pages were lacking. Similarly,
bbcurdu.com users requested a fully functioning
English/Urdu dictionary to increase the usability
and educational value of the site.
There was a strong corpus of common
opinion about the overall brand image of the
BBC and the BBC World Service as being
authoritative, but also somewhat staid and
conservative. This came across in nearly all of
the countries surveyed. However, contrasts
came through in the descriptors applied to
BBC online. Respondents described a brand
that was immediately younger, less formal and
much more in tune with modern British
values.We were encouraged by this more
diverse brand image.
In conclusion, feedback from the respondents
satisfied us that our research – while inevitably
limited and impressionistic – nevertheless
provided a useful indication of a range of
listener and potential listener views across the
language services, and that BBC World Service
management have been made aware of the
key concerns of the respondents.
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