BBC World News celebrates 25 years today

The BBC’s international channel BBC World News celebrates 25 years on air during Friday 11th March. The channel is the BBC’s biggest in terms of audience reach.

According to figures released by the BBC, BBC World News reaches 85 million viewers every week. 433 million households can receive BBC World News in their channel line-up.

Launched in 1991 as BBC World Service Television (WSTV) under the era of John Tusa as World Service Managing Director, the channel was not allowed to be funded by the Foreign Office, and so had to become a commercial enterprise.

Speaking about the anniversary, BBC Global News Ltd CEO Jim Egan said:

“The world has changed dramatically for all of us in the past 25 years and so has the way we get news from the field to our viewers. But our commitment to providing accurate, impartial news of the highest quality to international audiences is unwavering. We’re proud that, in a world of great uncertainty and in a news industry which is every bit as volatile, BBC World News continues to grow and is the most trusted source of global television news available anywhere.”

Since 2015, more of the channel’s output can be seen in the UK than ever before. Following cutbacks at the BBC News Channel, up to an hour of World News content is shown at 9pm, led by interactive news show Outside Source from Monday-Thursday and World News Today from Friday to Sunday.
BBC World News is simulcast from midnight to 6am on the News Channel and in turn on BBC One for part of that time. BBC Four also simulcasts BBC World News on weekdays at 7pm.

With BBC News reportedly needing to find further cost savings, recent rumours have included merging the UK focused BBC News Channel with BBC World News, or at least increasing the number of simulcasts.