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Hours before Rachel Reeves stood up to deliver her budget last year, government officials were still in tense negotiations with bosses at the BBC over how much the World Service would be given.
The amount they were haggling over was relatively small – just £5.5m out of a total budget of £400m. But BBC chiefs warned the government that if the cuts were imposed on them, they would have to close several language stations in parts of the world where the Russians already hold influence. Doing so would be a gift to Moscow, they added.
The argument worked, and the BBC got the extra cash it was asking for. But executives at the corporation worry that their appeal to Britain’s soft power might not prove so effective this time, especially in light of the government’s recent cuts to the aid budget.
“The government is asking the World Service to model cuts that would definitely mean having to close important parts of the service,” said one person familiar with the negotiations. “The BBC’s lobbying worked last time, but this round is proving harder.”
The Guardian recently revealed the government had asked the World Service to model two scenarios: one where their funding remains the same in cash terms; and one where it would be cut by 2% each year in cash terms. Each scenario would see the budget fall behind inflation, and could mean it ends up to £70m short of what its bosses believe it needs.
Jonathan Munro, the global director of the BBC, said: “When it comes to international impact and influence, the BBC World Service is the UK’s most powerful asset.
“While we currently deliver news in 42 languages to over 400m people every week, at the greatest value for money compared to other international news providers, we are ambitious about going further to provide independent news where there is a vital need.”
The service is just one institution promoting Britain’s soft power abroad, but it is arguably the most powerful, reaching 450m people a week, according to the broadcaster’s own figures.
When pollsters asked people from around the world about various British exports and organisations, the BBC came out well ahead of any other, with nearly 80% having heard of it and nearly 50% saying it made them feel more positively about the UK. In comparison, only about 55% had heard of the monarchy, and only 25% said it made them view the UK more favourably.
According to the same research, which the BBC commissioned, the organisation is also the most trusted of any global news outlet, ahead of CNN, Al Jazeera and Sky News.
Jonathan McClory, the managing partner at Sanctuary Counsel and an expert on soft power, said: “It’s a gratuitous accident of history that we have the BBC World Service. You couldn’t recreate it if you were starting from scratch, but it enables us to shape a global information landscape and promote British values, such as a free press, transparency and broad support for human rights.”
Ministers say they understand this. Jenny Chapman, the international development minister, told the Guardian: “The World Service do tremendous work, work that nobody else can do … They are soft power, an absolute gold standard resource. We respect that.”
But supporters of the organisation fear that budgetary pressure has left its influence on the wane.
In 2014, the coalition government stopped funding the world service, leaving the BBC to pay for it purely out of the licence fee. Two years later the government restored some direct funding, which was ringfenced for certain language services, but at a much lower level.
Most of the service’s £400m budget still comes from licence fee money – a situation the director general, Tim Davie, has warned is not sustainable, especially when domestic operations are being cut.
Both scenarios that the government has asked BBC bosses to draw up for the World Service would involve closing certain parts of it.
While it will not shut down operations in entire countries, BBC insiders say they are likely to have to close certain foreign language services where there are relatively few people who speak that language. Those services in places close to Russia – which corporation bosses warned last year would be closed if more money was not forthcoming – are once more on the chopping block.
The problem with closing operations, even those with relatively small audiences, is that it can give Russia and China a perfect opportunity to push their own propaganda.
When the BBC ended its long-wave BBC Arabic radio service in Lebanon, for example, Russian-backed media took over that exact frequency and began broadcasting on it instead. And on the day that thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah all simultaneously exploded in Lebanon, BBC monitors said they picked up what Davie later called “unchallenged [Russian] propaganda” on that station.
The BBC’s research has found that its trust level was largely unchanged from four years ago at 78%. Trust in both Russia Today and China Global Television Network had jumped however, from 59% to 71% and from 62% to 70%, respectively.
Last week Caroline Dinenage, the Conservative chair of the culture, media and sport select committee, wrote to cabinet ministers warning: “Without sufficient resources, it could lead to more situations where the world service withdraws or reduces its services and Russian state media fills the vacuum, as in Lebanon.
“Ahead of the spending review, I invite you to reassure us that the government is not seeking to make a 2% cut to its funding of the World Service, at a time when it is vital to our strategic priorities, and that the government will not require cuts that will lead to the BBC having to close one or more language services.”
Such arguments have worked with Reeves and her officials in the past. But the chancellor is hemmed in like never before, having already promised major funding increases for defence, the health service and local transport.
Dinenage said: “Ministers have told us that the world service bolsters UK security. Cutting its funding now would undoubtably make us all less safe.”
A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “Despite a tough fiscal situation, we continue to back the World Service, providing a large uplift of £32.6m this year alone, taking our total funding to £137m.
“The work they do as an independent and trusted broadcaster is highly valued by this government, as our continued financial support shows.”
