BBC to close eight of 12 European language services

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Analysis: BBC's voice in Europe

The BBC has decided to close eight of its 12 European language services as
part of a wider reorganisation of external broadcasting.  The BBC's Europe
analyst Jan Repa looks at a radio history which began in the 1930s. The
BBC's vernacular broadcasts to Europe were born out of the struggle
against German Nazism and Italian Fascism - and the Cold War confrontation
with the Soviet Union.

External broadcasting - in English - began in 1932. It was aimed
specifically at white listeners in countries like Australia, Canada and
New Zealand, in an attempt to persuade them to remain within the British
Empire. In 1933, the Nazis came to power in Germany. By the time World War
II began in 1939, the BBC was broadcasting in German, Italian, French,
Spanish and Portuguese. As the German war machine swept across Europe, the
BBC was soon broadcasting in Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Dutch,
Serbo-Croat, Albanian and others. By the time war ended in 1945, the BBC
was offering programmes in 45 languages worldwide.

 SERVICES BEING AXED:  Bulgarian Croatian Czech Greek Hungarian Kazakh
Polish Slovak Slovene Thai

Hugh Greene - later to become director general of the BBC - explained the
editorial philosophy thus: "Having heard us talk frankly about our
defeats, listeners would believe us when we talked of our victories." With
the onset of the Cold War, BBC broadcasting to Europe faced new
challenges. Unlike America's Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe, the BBC
was not a propaganda station. The basic premise continued to be that -
when presented with the facts - listeners would draw their own
conclusions.

Unlike the American stations, for instance, the BBC did not encourage the
Hungarians' failed uprising against the Soviet Union in 1956. That policy
created its own tensions - with some of the more recently arrived staff
feeling that the BBC was not "engaged" enough in what they interpreted as
a struggle against the Communist regimes.

Changing priorities

BBC language sections have come and gone. German-language broadcasts were
stopped in 1999 after 60 years. The BBC announced that audience research
indicated that a large number of decision-makers in Germany now listened
to the BBC in English. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper
retorted that "From now on, anyone who doesn't speak English well enough
isn't worthy of the BBC".

Dutch, Finnish, French for Europe, Italian and Spanish all disappeared
over the years - as did Japanese, Hebrew and Malay. Through the Cold War,
non-Russians in the Soviet Union had no option but to listen in Russian.
Only after the Soviet Union disappeared in 1991, did the British
government authorise broadcasting in languages like Ukrainian, Uzbek,
Azeri, Kazakh and Kyrgyz.

Albanian - abolished in 1967 - was resurrected in 1993, against the
background of the Yugoslav wars. Over the years, the BBC has served as a
training ground for European journalists, who have - in a number of cases
- gone on to make significant media careers in their home countries.
However, the nature of broadcasting continues to change. Fewer people in
the developing world now use radio as a primary means of acquiring
information. Today's announcement marks the biggest single change in the
BBC's broadcasting strategy for Europe since the 1940s.