What's in a name ?

Sorry to bombard BBC hacks today, but there's a lot to digest. Many "domestic" news staff at the BBC will be looking to Linguaphone from today, with the announcement that next year BBC World Service will be creating 130 new jobs, many of them bi- or multi-lingual. I wouldn't mind betting that's close to the number of post-closures that still have to be made in UK BBC News operations to reach their final Delivering Quality First target over the next two financial years.

Peter Horrocks' announcements yesterday were also interesting about identity and integration. There will be more integration; he expects "all the teams across Global News, from the World Service, BBC Monitoring, BBC World News, BBC.com and Media Action, to work seamlessly together within News and the wider BBC."  Mmmm. This requires more trust than is current about "programme numbers" and "departmental cost codes". But he also announced a move designed to expand the World Service brand....

I want to announce one further change that will help reinforce the identity of the World Service. You will know that the Director-General has asked that BBC bureaucracy and titles be simplified. For instance Vision became TV. We have had two labels – Global News and World Service. From April 1, we will change the name of Global News. Instead there will be a World Service Group – a sort of World Service plus – consisting of WS, GN Ltd, Monitoring and BBC Media Action. It is a small but symbolic change that cements the WS name. A huge part of our heritage – vital to our future. At the same time with the end of Foreign Office funding, we’ll end the role of the World Service Board.

Global News as a BBC title arrived in the heady, bouffant, days of Mark Byford, first to own the designation Director of GN, alongside Director of World Service, when it was established in December 2002. It was always a pompous handle, redolent of Lex Luthor's take-over of the Daily Planet. I don't begrudge the spending of a fee-licence fees unscrewing a few name plates.  What's not clear to me is what Mr Horrocks' new title might be, and how, within the mighty News, the  new "World Service" balances its books with its targets.