The BBC World Service is the world's largest international broadcaster, broadcasting news, speech and discussions in 27 languages to many parts of the world on analogue and digital shortwave platforms, internet streaming, podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays. The World Service was reported to have reached 188 million people a week on average in June 2009. It aims to be politically independent, as specifically expressed in the BBC Charter agreement, it is non-profit, and does not carry advertising. The English language service broadcasts 24 hours a day.
The World Service is currently funded by grant-in-aid through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the British Government, however from 2014, it will be funded by the compulsory television licence fee levied on every household in the United Kingdom using a television to watch broadcast programmes.
BBC World Service is a patron of The Radio Academy. The Director of the World Service is currently Peter Horrocks.
Read more about BBC World Service: History, Operation, Programming, Presentation, Magazine Publishing
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“To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.”
—Anonymous. quoted in “Quote Unquote,” Feb. 22, 1982, BBC Radio 4.
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—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
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—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)