BBC World Service Loses 3 Million Listeners: Review

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, July 18, 2002

BBC World Service Loses 3 Million Listeners: Review

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The World Service of Britain's world famous broadcasting company, British Broadcasting Corporation, lost 3 million listeners from its global audience in the past year, according to the corporation's annual review published Wednesday.

Its director Mark Byford said the network also suffered from a slump in listening in India, its largest listening audience population, where BBC used to be widely accepted and welcomed.

"In the context of more intense competition and market deregulation the overall global radio audience for BBC World Service fell ... from the record high in 2001, to 150 million listeners," Byford said.

In India alone, "less than one in four now listens to any radiostation, impacted severely on the overall World Service global figure," he said.

"Our first all-India survey revealed a 45 percent drop in our audience there, down 12 million to 14.6 million listeners," he said.

Earlier this week, the network learned it would receive an extra 48 million pounds (about 72 million US dollars) in government funding over the next three years to expand its services.

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