The BBC's global role

In 1989, as a young BBC news producer, I stood in front of the Berlin Wall watching protestors hack lumps out of it. There was a mood of euphoria – everyone recognised this was an historic turning point, ending the Cold War and opening an era of opportunity. It was the start of the satellite age – with dishes lined up along the wall to broadcast events to the world. The internet had not yet arrived. It seemed the culmination of the West's long campaign against communist repression.

The BBC's response to the historic changes of 1989 was much as it had been for the previous 50 years – to bear witness, to offer accurate information and to connect audiences at home and around the world in a unifying moment. Among the more paternalistic responses, the BBC's World Service launched “The Marshall Plan of the Mind” to help Warsaw Pact countries move from command to free market economies offering innovative programming and media support.1 It was the beginning of globalisation, a more connected and interdependent world and an expansion of democracy. The BBC rose to that moment of optimism and growth, and in the years that followed, exploited the arrival of the internet, digital platforms and the multi-channel world to reach out to global audiences.

The BBC was established in the shadow of a traumatising world war and a global flu pandemic, followed by economic depression, with the next war on the horizon. The British Empire was breaking up, provoking questions about national identity. From the outset, the new organisation was conceived as a project to consolidate and unify public opinion through the innovative technology of radio.

Since then, one of the secrets of the BBC's success is its ability to reinvent itself according to the pressures of social, technological or political change. This agility, surprising in what is often seen as a sclerotic institution, has ensured it still occupies a leading position in both the UK and international media markets. For all the frenzied debate about competition, funding or relevance, its reputation and audience reach stand high.

The start of the World Service was less sure-footed, although not lacking in ambition. An early policy paper suggested the BBC's global purpose should be to “prevent the imperial ideal from being swamped by local nationalism”.4 Today we might substitute globalisation for imperialism and autocracy for local nationalism. To that extent at least, the BBC has always been pro democracy, and pro Western values.

In 1932, speaking in the World Service's opening broadcast, the director general, Lord Reith, declared that radio was: “an instrument of almost incalculable importance in the social and political life of the community. Its influence will more and more be felt in the daily life of the individual in almost every sphere of human activity, in affairs national and international … The service as a whole is dedicated to the best interests of mankind.”5

Through the 1930s and into the Second World War, the BBC's editorial values were consolidated, recognising that accurate reporting, set against Germany's propaganda, was more effective. Trust was cemented as the core of the BBC's relationship with its audience.

The 20th century was an age where democratic values were fought over and, we thought, won. Today we see the return of autocracies around the world, from Moscow, to Beijing, Budapest, Manila, Riyadh, Delhi and more, with an alleged “decline of the West”.7 Indeed, even the political stability of the US – so vital in the last century – is unclear. And as climate change advances, we can expect more political disruption fed by shortages of resources, increased migration and rising inequality.

Now with a new front opening in Ukraine, attention is once again turning to Europe. But the challenges of the 21st century require more than a simple reprioritising of budgets and services. They need a vision as bold as that of 90 years ago.

It has adapted well – moving online, moving onto messaging apps, offering digital video, innovating its output and helping users circumvent censorship via the dark web. Yet further reform is inevitable. Investments in new digital operations will have to be balanced against a continual call for budget cuts – even as the case for providing reliable information strengthens.

Where once it was fully funded by Foreign Office Grant-in-Aid, the Conservative-led coalition government withdrew support in its 2010 spending review as a means of forcing cuts on the domestic BBC. Now the BBC's international news services are a complicated mix of licence fee funding (which some argue protects it from political interference), targeted government funding for specific projects focused on Russia and countering disinformation (about £95 million per year) and commercial funding for English language TV and online news. Cuts to the core BBC licence fee, which has been reduced by 25 per cent in real terms over the past decade,8 now inevitably impact the World Service as well.

The debate about the future of the BBC tends to be technocratic, focusing on distribution, reach, platforms and partnerships – the ‘how’ of production. The new era deserves a fresh commitment to ‘why’ public broadcasting has much to offer a world facing increasing threats.

The BBC is seen as a declining power set against the major streaming organisations like Netflix and Amazon. And although its global reputation partly rests on British drama and entertainment, it can never match the commissioning budgets of the streaming giants. But the BBC's soft power – the international influence it brings back to the UK – rests firmly with news, which the digital giants have neither the experience nor appetite to offer.

The emerging threats of this century provide at least as strong a rationale for the BBC's global services as those of the past. Post Brexit, Britain needs the BBC's international reach more than ever.