BBC World Service

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The noble Lord is quite right. As I indicated in the figures that I gave, although radio remains immensely important, the trend is towards television becoming the dominant leader. We can see from the enormous rise in the influence of Al-Jazeera just how powerful it is and how important it is to promote our own TV services. Therefore, although I cannot give precise undertakings on precise figures, that is clearly a high priority.

[Baroness Coussins]

My Lords, following the reprieve of the Hindi service, are any of the other foreign language services that have been cut likely to be able to benefit from a similar rescue package, possibly including commercial partnerships?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary gave permission for five foreign language services to be cut, mainly because their usage had fallen dramatically. However, the allocation of resources for maintaining foreign language services and the possibilities of bringing in commercial support are matters for the BBC World Service and, after 2014, for the BBC. The Department for International Development is discussing ways in which it can work in a more strategically joined-up manner with the BBC World Service Trust, which itself produces the prospect of more support for the services we want to keep and are effective and fit into the modern technological pattern.