Timeline of the BBC World Service

A timeline of notable events relating to the BBC World Service, the world's largest international broadcaster, which began broadcasting in 1932.

1930s

1940s

1950s

1960s

  • 1960
  • 1961
    • 4 March – Swedish programming ends.
  • 1962
    • 3 June – Programming in Thai resumes.
  • 1963
    • No events.
  • 1964
    • No events.
  • 1965
  • 1966
    • The World Service's reach in Africa is expanded with the opening of the Ascension Island relay.
    • 4 July – Outlook is broadcast for the first time.
  • 1967
  • 1968
    • 28 October – Hebrew programming ends.
  • 1969
    • 7 June – BBC Nepali launches as a weekly programme.

1970s

1980s

  • 1980
  • 1981
    • 15 August – Pashto programming begins.
    • 31 December – Programming in Italian and Maltese ends.
  • 1982
    • September – The BBC World Service becomes available to UK listeners for the first time, albeit only in south east England.
  • 1983
    • No events.
  • 1984
    • No events.
  • 1985
    • August – For the first time in its history the World service is taken off air due to strike action in protest at the British government's decision to ban a documentary featuring an interview with Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin.
  • 1986
    • No events.
  • 1987
  • 1988
    • By 1988, the World Service ie broadcast on BBC Radio 4's long wave frequency when Radio 4 is not on air. Consequently, for the first time, the World Service is available to all of the UK, airing each night between 12,45am and 5.55am.
    • Newshour launches.
  • 1989
    • 1 April – The BBC launches BBC TV Europe, a subscription-based pan-European television station.

1990s

  • 1990
    • 11 March – Programming in Sinhala resumes.
  • 1991
    • 16 January – Upon the outbreak of the Gulf War, the BBC begins a continuous news service which is broadcast in the UK on BBC Radio 4 FM frequencies and around the world on the World Service.
    • 2 March – Radio 4 News FM closes and programming on the World Service returns to its usual output.
    • 31 March – Japanese programming ends after 48 years and Malay language programming ends after 50 years.
    • 15 April – The BBC World Service Television news service is launched. Unlike World Service radio which is funded by direct grant from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, WSTV is commercially funded and carries advertising, which means that it cannot be broadcast in the UK.
    • 29 September – Programmes in Croatian and Serbian begin.
    • 14 October – World Service TV launches its Asian service.
    • The first broadcasts of Europe Today take place.
  • 1992
  • 1993
    • 20 February – The BBC Albanian service is relaunched after being off air for 26 years.
    • November – The World Service's monthly listings magazine London Calling is ‘replaced’ with a 100-page colour magazine and is renamed BBC Worldwide. It is later renamed to BBC On Air.
  • 1994
  • 1995
  • 1996
  • 1997
    • March – The first edition of Everywoman is broadcast.
    • 4 November – Début of the BBC World Service soap Westway.
    • 31 December – The Finnish service ends after 57 years.
  • 1998
    • The BBC World Service overnight transmission on BBC Local Radio ends and is replaced by BBC Radio 5 Live. The World Service had been aired on Radio 4's FM frequencies overnight for some time and is also airing 24/7 on the BBC's fledgling DAB multiplex.
  • 1999
    • BBC 648, which provided French and German language content for northern Europe from the Orfordness transmitting station, ends with the closure of the BBC's German service. – the French for Europe service had closed in 1995. Consequently, all programming from this transmitter is in English only.
    • The World Today is broadcast for the first time.

2000s

  • 2000
    • No events.
  • 2001
    • Technology programme Go Digital launches.
    • 1 July – The World Service ends short wave radio transmission directed to North America and Australasia. It says that "changing listening habits" are the reason for this decision. A shortwave listener coalition formed to oppose the change.
  • 2002
  • 2003
    • No events.
  • 2004
    • December – The final edition of the World Service's magazine BBC On Air is published.
  • 2005
    • 5 October – It is announced that broadcasts in a number of European languages will end by March 2006, to finance the launch in 2007 of TV news services in Arabic and Persian.
    • 10 October – The BBC's Latin American service is renamed BBC Mundo.
    • October – The BBC World Service soap opera Westway comes to an end after eight years on air.
    • 16 December – Kazakh programming ends.
    • 23 December – Polish programming ends after 66 years and Slovene programming ends after 64 years.
    • 30 December – Bulgarian programming ends after 65 years.
    • 31 December – Hungarian and Greek programming end, both after 66 years and Slovak programmes ends after 64 years.
  • 2006
    • 13 January – Thai programming ends for a second time.
    • 31 January – Croatian programming ends.
    • 28 February – Czech programming ends.
    • April – The final edition of Everywoman is broadcast. Archived episodes of the programme have since been made available on the BBC website.
    • October – The first edition of World Have Your Say is broadcast.
  • 2007
    • No events.
  • 2008
    • 18 February – The World Service ends analogue short wave broadcasting in Europe.
    • 6 April – Discussion programme The Forum debuts.
    • 1 August – Romanian broadcasts end after 69 years.
    • 27 October – A new daily arts magazine programme The Strand is launched.
  • 2009
    • No events.

2010s

  • 2010
    • September – The BBC announces that Sportsworld at Wimbledon is to be axed as a cost-cutting measure.
  • 2011
    • January – The closure of the Albanian, Macedonian, Portuguese for Africa, Serbian and English for the Caribbean services is announced. All of these services close over the next three months. This reflected the financial situation the Corporation faced following transfer of responsibility for the Service from the Foreign Office, so that it would in future have been funded from within licence fee income.
    • 25 March – Europe Today is broadcast for the final time after 20 years on air.
    • 27 March – These budget cuts also result in the switching off of the Orfordness transmitting station in Suffolk, which had been transmitting the BBC World Service on 648 kHz MW to much of northern Europe since 1982.
    • 29 March – Technology programme Go Digital is renamed Click.
    • Also in 2011, the Russian, Ukrainian, Mandarin Chinese, Turkish, Vietnamese, Azeri, and Spanish for Cuba services ceased radio broadcasting, and the Hindi, Indonesian, Kyrgyz, Nepali, Swahili, Kinyarwanda and Kirundi services ceased shortwave transmissions.
  • 2012
  • 2013
    • 29 March – Daily arts magazine programme The Strand ends with coverage of the arts integrated into Outlook.
    • 1 April –
      • World Briefing, the World Service's standard 30-minute news bulletin, is cancelled and replaced by The Newsroom.
      • Outlook is extended and now runs for just under an hour.
    • 28 October – BBC OS launches. The new programme says that it "aims to open up the news process, enabling people to discover the latest on the stories that matter to them."
  • 2014
    • 1 April – The World Service stops being funded by the UK Government grant and is now funded by the television licence fee and the profits of BBC Worldwide Ltd. although the Government is providing limited funding until 2020.
    • 10 July – Thai programming recommences, but only on social media.
  • 2015
  • 2016
    • November – The BBC announces the largest expansion of foreign language programming since the 1940s.
  • 2017
    • 21 August – The first of the new language services start broadcasting when transmissions in Nigerian Pidgin begin.
    • 18 September – Programming in Afaan Oromoo and Tigrinya begin.
    • 26 September – Korean programming begins.
    • 2 October –
      • After 73 years off air, Gujarati programming resumes and after 59 years off air, Marathi programming resumes.
      • Programming in Punjabi and Telugu begin.
  • 2018
    • 19 February – Programming in Igbo and Yoruba begins.
  • 2019

2020s

  • 2020
    • No events.
  • 2021
    • No events.
  • 2022
    • Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the BBC begins broadcasting World Service English programming at shortwave frequencies 15.735 MHz and 5875 kHz for receivers in Ukraine and parts of Russia.

This page was last updated at 2023-12-23 19:14 UTC. Update now. View original page.

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