BBC World Service will be cut back extensively

Malaysia Sun Wednesday 26th January, 2011

The BBC has indicated that it will soon outline to its staff the cuts being made to the historical BBC World Service.

The BBC will soon let its workforce of 2,400 know what cuts are going to be made, and to what degree, in its World Service division.

It is thought that around 650 jobs will be eliminated when the BBC World Service in Macedonian, Albanian and Serbian is cancelled, as well as English in the Caribbean and Portuguese in Africa.

Director general Mark Thompson has said the final day of broadcasting for those services will be a “painful” one for the BBC.

Unions have called the cuts to the World Service “ferocious” and “drastic”, but the BBC have insisted that they need to make the cuts in order to save £46 million per year due to cut backs from the British government.

In October last year, the UK announced that the BBC would have to take over the £272 million per year cost of the World Service from the Foreign Office.

The World Service has been broadcasting around the world since 1932 and became an iconic source of information and news updates during the Second World War.

The service currently has a global audience of 241 million via radio, television and the Internet.