BBC bosses want defence budget to help pay for the World Service | BBC World Service
BBC bosses, arguing that the aspects of the service should be vital for national security, the British defense budget is lobbying to use.
The top executives in the company are discussing with the authorities that some of the service, such as the media, will not be considered the security of the UK, such as media monitoring and separation, as they try to avoid tens of millions of pounds.
Guardian announced in May that the government wanted to prepare a lower budget plans of 70 million pounds than the service needed to reduce Keir Starmer’s decision to reduce the aid budget.
World Service President Jonathan Munro said that he wanted to öyle spread the burden ın of his fund in Whitehall to an event at the Labor Conference last week.
“There are very difficult rules about what is important as defense expenditures, but the things that are considered as stability and conflict expenditures have been placed in this field,” he said.
Those close to the talks say that the BBC wants money from the defense budget collected to meet the promise of spending 2.5% of GDP by 2027 by 2027.
A BBC spokesman said: “The BBC World Service offers a unique UK cultural impact worldwide and brings economic benefits to the UK and plays an important role in national security and global stability.
“We are suing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about our financing and we will continue our negotiations with the government about the long -term future for the BBC World Service.”
The government pays about one -third of the World Service of the World Service, which is described as overseas aid from the budget of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Earlier this year, Starmer’s decision to reduce most of this financing, but the ministers asked the ministers to prepare plans for cuts up to 2% per year from the world service.
BBC executives hopes to alleviate the burden on the budget of the stretched Ministry of Foreign Affairs by classifying some of their expenditures as national security. This will probably include efforts to watch foreign media and reveal information from other countries to resist propaganda.
The company hopes to reach an agreement before the budget in November.
As part of existing plans, the World Service announced 130 job deductions as part of the plans to save £ 6 million earlier this year.
The value of the license fee does not keep up with the significant increasing costs of television and is under acute financial pressure.
However, while spending billions of international media organizations such as Donald Trump and Voice of America and billions of Russia and China’s own foreign media operations, senior BBC executives want to see a great expansion in the audience of the world service.
The General Manager of the publisher Tim Davie talked about doubling his viewers to one billion people instead of managing the fall.
The BBC executives want the government’s contribution to service to rise to £ 200 million in the next settlement, because they continue to sell it as a weapon in the misinformation struggle. Both China and Russia are targeting the regions they see as open to an anti -Western message.
In the 2025-26 agreement, government financing increased, but only rose to £ 137 million.
At the last conference in Cambridge, Davie warned that “seems to be very dangerous” in a world more dangerous and unpredictable world. He said: “What is England’s place in the world scene? Can Western democracies surrender in the modern world?”
In the long run, senior BBC figures are trying to reopen the decision, which sees that the company meets the costs of the world service in 2014. It was one of the measures taken as part of the coalition government’s arctic driving driving.
This speech is wider talks on the renewal of the regulation of the BBC, which is set to contain a debate about the reform of the license fee.
Considering the difficulties of Chancellor Rachel Reeves, it is unlikely to turn on such a reversal on the financing of the world service.
