HC Deb 31 March 2004 vol 419 c1449W
Hugh Bayley

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what his Department's grant was to(a) the BBC World Service and (b) BBC World Television in each of the last three years; what the turnover was of each; and what proportion of (i) programmes broadcast and (ii) the budget of each service was devoted to educational programming.[164150]

Mr. Mullin

Figures for the grant in aid paid by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the BBC World Service and for the BBC World Service's turnover in the last three financial years are:

£million
Financial year Grant in aid World service broadcasting turnover
2003–04 1220 3224.2
2002–03 2201 205.7
2001–02 187.9 192.9
1 Budget.
2 Outturn.
3 Forecast.

The proportions of BBC World Service programmes and of its budget devoted to educational programmes over the same period have been:

Percentage
Financial year Programmes Budget
2003–04 10.7 11.3
2002–03 0.7 1.4
2001–02 0.8 1.6
1Estimated.

In addition, the BBC World Service funds the BBC 'LearnEnglish' website, which generates traffic of over four million page impressions per month; and for the Chinese English language market it jointly runs with the British Council the 'In2English' which generates significant traffic.

BBC World Television is commercially funded by advertising and distribution revenue and is financially separate from the BBC World Service. It would not fall to me to comment on the allocation of funds within BBC World Television or on the content of its programming.

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