Funding of the BBC World Service

Background

The BBC World Service is the BBC’s international broadcaster. It broadcasts in English and 40 other languages. The government provides approximately one-third of the funding for the BBC World Service, with the remainder coming from the BBC licence fee.

In January 2025, the BBC reported that the BBC World Service would be cutting 130 jobs as part of a plan to save around £6 million in the next financial year. The report noted that despite increased government funding, financial pressures and the previous two-year freeze to the BBC licence fee had left the corporation with a total deficit of £492 million for the 2024/25 financial year.

In the Spring Statement 2025, the government announced a reduction to official development assistance (ODA) spending from 0.5% to 0.3% of Gross National Income by 2027. Approximately 80% of government funding for the World Service reportedly comes from the ODA.

In May 2025, a Guardian article claimed that the Foreign Office had asked BBC bosses to draw up a plan that would see “tens of millions of pounds’ worth of cuts” to the World Service as part of the spending review. The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) said it was alarmed at reports that the World Service had been asked to consider significant budget reductions. Laura Davison, NUJ general secretary, commented:

Without genuinely sustainable, long term funding of the BBC World Service, the crucial journalism produced by its dedicated teams remains under threat. Audiences should not accept a diminished offering at a time when access to credible journalism is absolutely essential around the world. If reports of further budgetary constraints are accurate, government must rethink plans and recognise the true scale of impact further cuts will have.

We need a concerted effort to agree a meaningful funding deal for the World Service, and call on Ministers to act swiftly and positively in engagement with the BBC.

During a House of Lords debate on 2 June 2025, Lord Collins of Highbury, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, responded to a question on what long-term plans the government had for the BBC World Service:

My Lords, the Government highly value the BBC World Service and its contribution to our international objectives. We increased our contribution for this year. Decisions on the World Service funding settlement will be made through the ongoing spending review and allocations process. The Government’s view is that the upcoming BBC charter review is the right moment to look at potential sustainable and predictable funding mechanisms for the World Service in the long term.

Members’ concerns during the debate included the need to take into account the global role of the BBC World Service in combatting disinformation and state propaganda, the need to secure its funding for the future, and prevent it from being overtaken by other media sponsored by the Russian or Chinese governments. In response, the minister restated the government’s commitment to a “longer-term, sustainable funding mechanism that is not trapped by this yearly review.”

In December 2024, in his oral evidence to the select committee inquiry on the future of the BBC service (PDF), Jonathan Munro, Global Director and Deputy CEO of BBC News, stated:

[S]tability of budget at the current level will lead to decline in the World Service… other state actors are spending at an extraordinary rate and are eating our lunch, as it were. We pulled out of Lebanon relatively recently, a couple of years ago, with our Arabic radio service and the Russians moved in pretty much straightaway. The rate of spend of those state actors is eyewatering. We think that Russia and China combined are spending about £8 billion a year. As we have just discussed, we are spending about £400 million.

We need to invest in order to grow. Frankly, we need to invest in order to stay still...we were really grateful for the FCDO’s flexibility and we had a very good engagement with it about the funding round. It is a one-year settlement. It is not enough to maintain growth in the World Service in the longer run.

Further resources Parliamentary debates

• BBC World Service, HL Deb 2 June 2025 c465
• Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, HC Deb 5 March 2025 c340
• BBC: Funding, HC Deb18 December 2024 c140WH

Parliamentary questions

• BBC, 15 May 2025 | UIN 52580
• BBC World Service, 24 March 2025 | UIN 40790
• BBC World Service, 18 March 2025 | UIN HL5925
• BBC Monitoring and BBC World Service: Finance, 4 February 2025 | UIN 28444
• BBC World Service: Finance, 20 January 2025 | UIN 24824

Select committee reports/inquiries

• Culture, Media and Sport Committee, The Future of the BBC World Service. Evidence submitted to the inquiry is available from the committee’s webpage
• Foreign Affairs Committee, The Implications of Cuts to the BBC World Service (PDF), HC 849, April 2011
• Foreign Affairs Committee, The Implications of Cuts to the BBC World Service: Responses from the Government and the BBC to the Committee’s Sixth Report of Session 2010–12, HC 1058, May 2011