The largesse of the FCO and Treasury has punted an extra £33m at the BBC World Service. This financial year, the contribution was £104.4m; next year it will be £137m. At the time of the Budget, the guestimate was that the Government would cough up a further £27m, so the intervening weeks have seen some improvement.
We don't know yet what the BBC's response will be, and how much of the licence fee it has assigned to the World Service for 2025/26.
In 2022, the BBC closed traditional radio services in 10 languages, cutting 380 jobs and saving £28.5m. Internally and externally, the decision to drop Arabic radio has been acknowledged as a mistake.
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