| Type | Radio network |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Availability | Worldwide |
| Owner | BBC |
| Key people | Peter Horrocks (Director) |
| Launch date | 19 December 1932 |
| Former names | BBC Empire Service |
| Official website | www.bbcworldservice.com |
The BBC World Service is the world's largest international broadcaster,[1][2] broadcasting in 27 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays. It is politically independent (by mandate of the Agreement providing details of the topics outlined in the BBC Charter),[3] non-profit, and commercial-free.
The English language service broadcasts 24 hours a day. In June 2009 the BBC reported that the World Service's average weekly audience reached 188 million people.[4] The World Service is funded by grant-in-aid through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by the British Government.[5] From 2014, it will be funded by the compulsory BBC licence fee levied on every household in the United Kingdom using a television to watch broadcast programmes.[6]
BBC World Service is a patron of The Radio Academy.[7] The Director of the World Service is Peter Horrocks.
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The BBC World Service began as the BBC Empire Service in 1932 as a shortwave service.[8] Its broadcasts were aimed principally at English speakers in the outposts of the British Empire, or as George V put it in the first-ever Royal Christmas Message, the "men and women, so cut off by the snow, the desert, or the sea, that only voices out of the air can reach them."[9]
First hopes for the Empire Service were low. The Director General, Sir John Reith (later Lord Reith) said in the opening programme: "Don't expect too much in the early days; for some time we shall transmit comparatively simple programmes, to give the best chance of intelligible reception and provide evidence as to the type of material most suitable for the service in each zone. The programmes will neither be very interesting nor very good."[10] This address was read out five times as it was broadcast live to different parts of the world.
On 3 January 1938, the first foreign language service, Arabic, was launched. German programmes commenced shortly before the start of the Second World War and by the end of 1942 broadcasts were being made in all major European languages. The Empire Service was renamed the BBC Overseas Service in November 1939, and a dedicated BBC European Service was added in 1941. These broadcasting services, financed not from the domestic licence fee but from government grant-in-aid (from the Foreign Office budget), were known administratively as the External Services of the BBC.
The External Services gained a special position in international broadcasting during the Second World War, as an alternative source of news for a wide range of audiences, especially those in enemy and occupied territories who often had to listen secretly. George Orwell broadcast many news bulletins on the Eastern Service during World War II.[11][12]
The German Service, created on 29 March 1938 and discontinued in 1999, played an important part in the propaganda war against Nazi Germany.[13]
The service has been located at Bush House since a parachute mine damaged the studios' original home at Broadcasting House on 8 December 1940.[14] The European Service was the first to relocate, followed by the rest of the External Services in 1958. As part of a larger changes in terms of the use of BBC properties, the World Service will return to Broadcasting House in 2012, when BBC News, BBC World, the World Service, and BBC London will all be located in the same newsroom for the first time.
The name "BBC World Service" took effect on 1 May 1965.[15]
In August 1985, the service went off the air for the first time. Workers were striking in protest at the British government's decision to ban a documentary featuring an interview with Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin. The External Services were renamed under the BBC World Service brand in 1988.
According to the World Service, its aims include being "the world's best-known and most-respected voice in international broadcasting, thereby bringing benefit to the UK, the BBC and to audiences around the world".[16] The UK Government spent £241 million on the World Service in 2008/9.[17]
The BBC is a Crown Corporation of the British Government, but operates independently of it. There is no direct control of the BBC by the British Government. The World Service is required to take a "balanced British view" of international developments.[18]
During the Cold War the World Service was one of the leading international broadcasters to the Soviet Union.[19] The fall of the Iron Curtain has led to a significant change in World Service activities in the former Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe.[20] In its 2007 Foreign & Commonwealth Office Annual Report, the House of Commons' Foreign Affairs Committee concluded that the BBC Russian Service's joint project with Bolshoe Radio: was "the development of a partnership with the international arm of a Russian state broadcasting network [which] puts the BBC World Service’s reputation for editorial independence at risk."[21]
BBC Learning English, a constituent part of the World Service, devotes significant resources to helping people learn English.[22]
The English programme of the BBC World Service initially offered news, background, entertainment, culture and spiritual matters. After the 1990s only news, background, and culture remained.
After 1945, the World Service was recognisably British in its programming. This was most clearly symbolised by the hourly broadcast of the song Lillibullero (still broadcast, but not as often as before), followed by the chimes of Big Ben (no longer used in English-language broadcasts). Apart from news, there were music programmes, such as those presented by John Peel, classical music programmes presented by Edward Greenfield, religious programmes with mostly Anglican celebrations, often from the Church of St. Martin in the Fields, weekly drama, educational programmes such as English-language lessons, and humour, with Just A Minute. The hourly news always contained a section called News from Britain.
The towering figure among the informative programmes was Letter from America by Alistair Cooke, which was broadcast for over 50 years. For many years, a daily reading from a novel, biography or history book was broadcast in Off the Shelf. One of the longest running programmes is Outlook, which features human interest stories. It was first broadcast in July 1966 and was presented for more than thirty years by John Tidmarsh, who was awarded an OBE for his services to broadcasting.
The shortwave broadcasts and links between London and overseas relays were very unreliable before satellite communication, and the BBC relied heavily on enthusiastic shortwave listeners ("DXers") for reception reports. In 1967 they started a regular programme "BBC WORLD RADIO CLUB" to register this network of dedicated technical reporters. Presented by Doug Crawford, a former pirate-radio DJ, the programme regularly received 16 sacks of mail a week.
At the end of the 1990s the BBC decided to focus more heavily on news. During the Second Gulf War the BBC World Service in English started broadcasting short news summaries on the half hour, and continues to do so. Drama and music are still broadcast, but not as frequently as had been the case previously. The BBC World Service has argued that people tune to them mainly for news and that most people can access plenty of music from other sources.
Mainstays of the current BBC World Service schedule include the news programmes The World Today, Newshour and World Briefing, and the daily arts and entertainment news programme The Strand, which started in late 2008. There is a daily science programme, including Health Check, Click and Science in Action. At the weekends, much of the schedule is taken up by Sportsworld, which often includes live commentary of Premier League football matches. On Sundays the international, interdisciplinary discussion programme The Forum is broadcast. On weekdays, an hour of the schedule is given over to World: Have Your Say which encourages listeners to participate in discussing current events via text message, phone calls, emails and blog postings.
The following audience estimates are from research conducted in 2004 by independent market research agencies on behalf of the BBC:
| Language | 2004 | 2006 |
|---|---|---|
| English | 39 million | 44 million |
| Persian | 20.4 million | 22 million |
| Hindi | 16.1 million | 21 million |
| Urdu | 10.4 million | 12 million |
| Arabic | 12.4 million | 16 million |
In Africa and the Middle East the service broadcasts to 66 million listeners, of whom 18.7 million listen in English.
Besides English, the BBC World Service broadcasts in
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The German broadcasts were stopped in March 1999 after 60 years, as research showed that the majority of German listeners tuned in to the English version. Broadcasts in Dutch, Finnish, French for Europe, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese and Malay were stopped for similar reasons.
On 25 October 2005 it was announced that the Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Kazakh, Polish,[23] Slovak, Slovene and Thai language radio services would end by March 2006 in order to finance the launch of an Arabic and Persian language TV news channel in 2007. Romanian broadcasts ceased on 1 August 2008.
In January 2011, BBC World Service announced that it would be closing five language services: Albanian, Macedonian, Portuguese for Africa, Serbian, and English for the Caribbean. The British government announced that the three Balkan countries had luxuriant access to international information and continuation of broadcast in the local tongues had become unnecessary. It is a part of reducing 650 jobs (more than 25 percent of its workforce) due to facing a 16 percent budget cut between now and 2014 related with government's comprehensive spending review. It will make BBC cuts more than 1000 jobs following 360 jobs cut at BBC Online a few days earlier.[24]
In March 2011 The Guardian published an article[25] describing an agreement with the US State Department to receive funding in exchange for helping listeners access the World Service from countries routinely applying state censorship. This came shortly after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the US was losing the information war to (amongst others) China and Russia.
Traditionally, the BBC World Service relied on shortwave, because of its ability to overcome barriers of censorship, distance and spectrum scarcity. To this end, the BBC has maintained a worldwide network of shortwave relay stations since the 1940s, mainly in former British colonies. Over the decades, some of these stations have acquired increasingly powerful mediumwave and FM outlets as well. A special use of such cross-border broadcasts has been emergency messages to British subjects abroad, such as the advice to evacuate Jordan during the Black September incidents of September 1970. These facilities were privatised in 1997 as Merlin Communications, which were later acquired and operated as part of a wider network for multiple broadcasters by VT Communications (now part of Babcock International Group). It is common for BBC programmes to air on traditionally Voice of America or ORF transmitters, while their programming is relayed by a station physically located in the UK.
Since the 1980s, satellite distribution has made it possible for local stations to relay BBC programming, typically news bulletins but also educational, drama, and sports programming. The World Service is available as a free (basic) channel on a large number of satellite and cable systems. Both a live stream and an archive of previous programmes (now including podcasts) are available on the Internet.
Broadcasts have traditionally come from the UK, Cyprus (see Europe), the large BBC Atlantic Relay Station on Ascension Island, and the smaller Lesotho Relay Station and Indian Ocean Relay Station on Seychelles. A large part of the English schedule is taken up by specialist programming from and for Africa, for example Network Africa, Focus on Africa and Africa Have Your Say. In the 1990s, the BBC added FM facilities in many African capital cities. BBC service for Africa also uses Portuguese and French languages.
BBC shortwave broadcasts to this region were traditionally enhanced by the Atlantic Relay Station and the Caribbean Relay Company, a station in Antigua run jointly with Deutsche Welle. In addition, an exchange agreement with Radio Canada International gave access to their station in New Brunswick. However, "changing listening habits" led the World Service to end shortwave radio transmission directed to North America and Australasia on 1 July 2001.[26][27] A shortwave listener coalition formed to oppose the change.[28] Both XM Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio rebroadcast the World Service over commercial satellite radio to Canada and the United States,[29] and more than 300 public radio stations across the U.S. carry World Service news broadcasts -- mostly during the overnight and early-morning hours -- over AM and FM radio, through Public Radio International (PRI). The BBC and PRI also co-produce the programme The World with WGBH Radio Boston, and the BBC is also involved with The Takeaway morning news programme based at WNYC in New York City. BBC World Service programming also airs as part of CBC Radio One's CBC Radio Overnight schedule in Canada.
The BBC continues to broadcast to Central America and South America in several languages. It is possible to receive the Western African shortwave radio broadcasts from eastern North America, but the BBC does not guarantee reception in this area.[30] It has ended its specialist programming to the Falkland Islands but continues to provide a stream of World Service programming to the Falkland Islands Radio Service.[31]
For several decades, the World Service's largest audiences have been in Asia, the Middle East, Near East and South Asia. Transmission facilities in the UK and Cyprus have been supplemented by the former BBC Eastern Relay Station in Oman and the Far Eastern Relay Station in Singapore. The East Asian Relay Station moved from Hong Kong to Thailand when the former British colony reverted to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. Together, these facilities have given the BBC World Service an easily accessible signal in regions where shortwave listening has traditionally been popular. The English shortwave frequencies of 6195, 9740, 15310/360 and 17790/760 kHz are widely known.
The largest audiences are in English, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and other major languages of South Asia, where BBC broadcasters are household names. The Persian service is essentially the national broadcaster of Afghanistan, along with its Iranian audience. The World Service is available up to eighteen hours a day in English across Asia, and in Arabic for the Middle East. With the addition of relays in Afghanistan and Iraq these services are accessible in most of the Middle and Near East, at least in the evening. In Hong Kong and Singapore, the BBC World Service in English is essentially treated as a domestic broadcaster, easily available through long-term agreements with Radio Television Hong Kong and MediaCorp Radio. In the Philippines, DZRJ 810 AM airs the BBC World Service in English from 12mn - 5am.
On 13 January 2006, Thai BBC was closed to divert resources instead to a new Arabic language satellite television broadcasting station, although there were more than 570,000 listeners weekly.[32]
In 2011 the Mandarin shortwave service for China was closed due to spending cuts, though internet services and a weekly Cantonese radio broadcast continue.[33]
Iran, Iraq and Myanmar/Burma have all jammed the BBC in the past. Japan and Korea have little tradition of World Service listening, although during the 1970s to 1980s, shortwave listening was popular in Japan. In those two countries, the BBC World Service was only available via shortwave and the Internet. As of September 2007, a satellite transmission (subscription required) became available by Skylife (Channel 791) in South Korea.
The World Service employed a medium wave transmitter at Orford Ness to provide English-language coverage to Europe, including on the frequency 648 kHz (which could be heard in parts of the south-east of England). Transmissions on this frequency were stopped on March 27, 2011, as a consequence of the budgetary constraints imposed on the BBC World Service in the 2010 budget review.[34] A second channel (1296 kHz) traditionally broadcast in various Central European languages, but in 2005 it began regular English-language transmissions via the Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) format.[35] This is a digital shortwave technology that VT expects to become the standard for cross-border transmissions in developed countries.
In the 1990s, the BBC purchased and constructed large medium wave and FM networks in the former Soviet bloc, particularly the Czech (BBC Czech Section), Slovak Republics (BBC Slovak Section), Poland (BBC Polish Section) (where it was a national network) and Russia (BBC Russian Service). It had built up a strong audience during the Cold War, whilst economic restructuring made it difficult for these governments to refuse Western investment. Many of these facilities have now returned to domestic control, as economic and political conditions have changed.
On Monday 18 February 2008, the BBC World Service stopped analogue shortwave transmissions to Europe. The notice stated, "Increasing numbers of people around the world are choosing to listen to radio on a range of other platforms including FM, satellite and online, with fewer listening on shortwave."[36] It is sometimes possible to pick up the BBC World Service in Europe on SW frequencies targeted at North Africa. The BBC's powerful 198 kHz LW, which broadcasts the domestic BBC Radio 4 to Britain during the day (and carries the World Service during the night) can also be heard in nearby parts of Europe, including the Republic of Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium and parts of France, Germany and Scandinavia.
On Wednesday, 10 December 2008, BBC World Service and Deutsche Welle started broadcasting a joint DRM digital radio station. It broadcasts a mix of English-language news and information programmes produced by each partner, and is aimed at an audience in mainland Europe. The station hopes, among other things, to stimulate the production of DRM radio receivers.
Former BBC shortwave transmitters are located in the United Kingdom at Rampisham, Woofferton and Skelton. The former BBC East Mediterranean Relay Station is in Cyprus.
Shortwave relays from Singapore (see Asia, above) continue, but historic relays via Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and Radio New Zealand International were wound down in the late 1990s. The World Service is available as part of the subscription Digital Air package (available from Foxtel and Austar) in Australia. ABC NewsRadio, SBS Radio, and various community radio stations also broadcast many programmes. Many of these stations broadcast a straight feed during the midnight to dawn period. It is also available pseudo-free-to-air via the satellite service Optus Aurora, which is encrypted for the sake of protecting local rebroadcasting of national television services (a subscription is available for qualifying citizens living in remote areas).
In Sydney, Australia a transmission of the service can be received at 152.025 MHz. It is also available on the DAB+ Network in Australia under the name of SBS6.
BBC World Service relays on Radio Australia now carry the BBC Radio news programs.
BBC World Service is on an AM Frequency (810 kHz) in Auckland, New Zealand.
The BBC World Service does not receive funding for broadcasts to the UK, and reliable medium wave reception has traditionally only been possible in southeast England (see Europe, above). Since the introduction of digital broadcasting, the World Service's output has been made more widely available in the UK—the service is now carried on DAB, Freeview, Virgin Media and Sky Digital. After the British domestic radio station BBC Radio 4 ceases broadcasting at 0100 GMT, the World Service is broadcast on all its frequencies overnight, including 198 kHz longwave, which can be heard in parts of continental Europe.
Although the BBC said that shortwave transmissions for Western Europe had ceased (as of March 2007),[37] shortwave reception of 6195 and 9410 kHz, which might be aimed at Western Russia, was still possible for a few hours a day in the UK (sometimes, with a high strength signal), 9410 kHz from the Seychelles (For East Africa) is receivable in the UK between 18.30 and 22.00 (Feb 2011) However,the BBC has said all the remaining analogue shortwave transmissions to Europe ceased as of February 2008.[38] In a very few cases, 15400 kHz from the relay station in Ascension Island still becomes listenable, as are some frequencies directed to Africa.
In 2002, residents of Hooke in Dorset reported a case of the signal being so strong that they were able to receive the station through their toasters and other electrical appliances.[39]
The interval signal of the BBC World Service in English were the Bow Bells, a recording made in 1926. Introduced as a symbol of hope during the Second World War, it was until recently used preceding many (though not all) English-language broadcasts. Though for a few years in the 1970s, Oranges and Lemons was used as the interval, the Bow Bells were soon reintroduced.
January 1941 saw the beginning of the Morse code letter "V" as an interval signal. The interval signal had several variations including timpani, the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (which coincide with the letter "V"), and electronic tones which until recently remained in use for some Western European services. In other languages, the interval signal is three notes, pitched B-B-C. The use of interval signals on shortwave broadcasts appears to have been abandoned lately.
The BBC World Service's signature tune is now a five-note motif created by composer David Arnold. It is heard across the network in different variations.[40][41] The World Service's well-known signature tune Lillibullero was previously broadcast approaching the top of many hours, followed by the Greenwich Time Signal and the hourly news.[41] Now, a variety of voices declaim "This is the BBC in..." and go on to name various cities (e.g. Kampala, Milan, Delhi, Johannesburg). Until fairly recently, the hourly sequence was preceded by the announcement "This is London" — it is now followed by a more promotional "Wherever you are, you're with the BBC" or "With world news every half hour, this is the BBC". Except in the UK, these announcements no longer refer to the BBC World Service, but just "the BBC". More recently, Lillibulero has been relegated only to occasional use, and when it is played, only a shortened version is used. It has been suggested (by World Service staff) that the reduction in the use of Lillibullero is firstly because of its background as a Protestant marching song in Northern Ireland.[41]
The BBC's official response is that the decision was made by the transmission engineers, who found it particularly audible through short wave mush, and that they knew it as a tune for the old English song "There was an old woman tossed up in a blanket, quite 20 times as high as the moon".[40]
GMT is announced on the hour on the English service, e. g. "13 hours Greenwich Mean Time" is said at 1300 GMT. 0000 GMT is announced as "Midnight Greenwich Mean Time". On New Year's Eve, in what is an annual tradition, the World Service broadcasts the midnight chimes of London's landmark Big Ben clock tower.
The core feature of much World Service scheduling is the news. This is almost always transmitted at one minute past the hour, where there is a five-minute bulletin, and on the half-hour where there is a two-minute summary. Sometimes these bulletins are separated from the programmes being transmitted, whilst at other times they are integral to the programme (such as with World Briefing, Newshour or The World Today).
The BBC World Service employs a team of 11 announcer/newsreaders. As of April 2010, following restructuring in the Presentation department, those who regularly read the news are:
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Also heard are
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BBC policy for breaking news[42] has a priority list. With domestic news, the correspondent first records a "generic minute" summary (for use by all stations and channels) and then priority is to report on Radio 5 Live, then on the domestic BBC News Channel and onto any other programmes that are on air. For foreign news, first a "generic minute" is recorded, then reports are to World Service radio, then the correspondent talks to any other programmes that are on air at the time.
History of BBC World Service Language Broadcasting Services (sorted by language)[43][44][45]
| Language | Start Date | Close Date | Restart Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Afrikaans | 14 May 1939 | 8 September 1957 | - |
| Albanian | 12 November 1940 BBC Albanian | 20 January 1967, 28 February 2011 | 20 February 1993 |
| Arabic | 3 January 1938 BBC Arabic | - | - |
| Azeri | 30 November 1994 BBC Azeri | - | - |
| Belgian French & Belgian Dutch | 28 September 1940 | 30 March 1952 | - |
| Bengali (BBC Bengali) | 11 October 1941 BBC Bangla | - | - |
| Bulgarian | 7 February 1940 BBC Bulgarian | 23 December 2005 | - |
| Burmese | 2 September 1940 BBC Burmese | - | - |
| Croatian | 29 September 1991 BBC Croatian Archive | 31 January 2006 | - |
| Chinese-Cantonese | 5 May 1941 BBC Chinese | - | - |
| Chinese-Hokkien | 1 October 1942 | 7 February 1948 | - |
| Chinese-Mandarin | 19 May 1941 BBC Chinese | 25 March 2011 | - |
| Czech | 31 December 1939 BBC Czech Archive | 28 February 2006 | - |
| Danish | 9 April 1940 | 10 August 1957 | - |
| Dutch | 11 April 1940 | 10 August 1957 | - |
| Dutch for Indonesia | 28 August 1944 | 2 April 1945, 13 May 1951 | 25 May 1946 |
| English | 25 December 1936 BBC World Service | - | - |
| English (Caribbean) | 25 December 1976 BBC Caribbean | 25 March 2011[46][47] | - |
| Finnish | 18 March 1940 | 31 March 1997 | - |
| French for Africa | 20 June 1960 BBC French | - | - |
| French for Canada | 2 November 1942 | 8 May 1980 | - |
| French for Europe | 27 September 1938 | 31 March 1995 | - |
| French for South-East Asia | 28 August 1944 | 3 April 1955 | - |
| German | 27 September 1938 | 30 March 1999 | - |
| German for Austria | 29 March 1943 | 15 September 1957 | - |
| Greek | 30 September 1939 BBC Greek Archive | 31 December 2005 | - |
| Greek for Cyprus | 16 September 1940 | 3 June 1951 | - |
| Gujarati | 1 March 1942 | 3 September 1944 | - |
| Hausa | 13 March 1957 BBC Hausa | - | - |
| Hebrew | 30 October 1949 | 28 October 1968 | - |
| Hindi | 11 May 1940 BBC Hindi | - | - |
| Hungarian | 5 September 1939 BBC Hungarian Archive | 31 December 2005 | - |
| Icelandic | 1 December 1940 | 26 June 1944 | - |
| Italian | 27 September 1938 | 31 December 1981 | - |
| Indonesian | 30 October 1949 BBC Indonesian | - | - |
| Japanese | 4 July 1943 | 31 March 1991 | - |
| Kazakh | 1 April 1995 BBC Kazakh Archive | 16 December 2005 | - |
| Kinyarwanda | 8 September 1994 BBC Kinyarwanda | - | - |
| Kyrgyz | 1 April 1995 BBC Kyrgyz | - | - |
| Luxembourgish | 29 May 1943 | 30 May 1952 | - |
| Macedonian | 6 January 1996 BBC Macedonian | 4 March 2011 | - |
| Malay | 2 May 1941 | 31 March 1991 | - |
| Maltese | 10 August 1940 | 31 December 1981 | - |
| Marathi | 1 March 1942 | 3 September 1944, 25 December 1958 | 31 December 1944 |
| Nepali | 7 June 1969 BBC Nepali | - | - |
| Norwegian | 9 April 1940 | 10 August 1957 | - |
| Pashto | 15 August 1981 BBC Pashto | - | - |
| Persian | 28 December 1940 BBC Persian | - | - |
| Polish | 7 September 1939 BBC Polish Archive | 23 December 2005 | - |
| Portuguese for Africa | 4 June 1939 BBC para Africa | 25 February 2011 | - |
| Portuguese-Brasil | 14 March 1938 BBC Brasil | - | - |
| Portuguese for Europe | 4 June 1939 | 10 August 1957 | - |
| Romanian | 15 September 1939 BBC Romanian Archive | 1 August 2008 | - |
| Russian language (BBC Russian Service) | 7 October 1942 BBC Russian | 26 May 1943， 26 March 2011 | 24 March 1946 |
| Serbian | 29 September 1991 BBC Serbian | 25 February 2011 [48] | - |
| Sinhala | 10 March 1942 BBC Sinhala | 30 March 1976 | 11 March 1990 |
| Slovak | 31 December 1941 BBC Slovak Archive | 31 December 2005 | - |
| Slovene | 22 April 1941 BBC Slovene Archive | 23 December 2005 | - |
| Somali | 18 July 1957 BBC Somali | - | - |
| Spanish for the Americas | 14 March 1938 BBC Mundo | - | - |
| Swahili | 27 June 1957 BBC Swahili | - | - |
| Swedish | 1941 | 4 March 1961 | - |
| Tamil | 3 May 1941 BBC Tamil | - | - |
| Thai | 27 April 1941 BBC Thai Archive | 5 March 1960, 13 January 2006 | 3 June 1962 |
| Turkish | 20 November 1939 BBC Turkish | 27 May 2011 | - |
| Ukrainian | 1 June 1992 BBC Ukrainian | - | - |
| Urdu | 3 April 1949 BBC Urdu | - | - |
| Uzbek | 30 November 1994 BBC Uzbek | - | - |
| Vietnamese | 6 February 1952 BBC Vietnamese | - | - |
| Welsh (to Patagonia) | 1945 | 1946 | - |
| Yugoslav (Serbo-Croatian) | 15 September 1939 | 28 September 1991 | - |
At various times in its history, the BBC World Service has published magazines and programme guides:
Of these, only BBC Focus on Africa is still being published.
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