§ Mr. ViggersTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on what basis his Department decides the languages and areas in which the BBC World Service should be funded to broadcast.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydThe languages and areas in which the BBC World Service broadcasts are regularly reviewed jointly by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the World Service in the light of foreign policy objectives. Decisions are based on the political significance of a country or region and the extent of British and wider western interests; the degree of openness in a society and of its people's access to objective news; the range of means490W available, besides broadcasting, to project Britain and British views; and in the case of existing language services, the size and profile of their audiences, their impact and influence, and their importance to bilateral relations.
§ Mr. ViggersTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the reasons his Department has decided not to fund BBC World Service broadcasts in Japanese.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydFollowing a joint FCO/BBC world service review of broadcasting output in 1990, it was agreed to increase output in Russian, Mandarin and Vietnamese, as well as English programmes to a number of regions, and to end broadcasts in Japanese and Malay for which audiences were small and declining. Both services ceased at the end of March 1991. World Service programmes in English continue to both areas.