The BBC’s director-general has warned that the UK is grappling with an increase in “pure propaganda” from countries such as Russia and China amid cuts to World Channel.
Tim Davy has called for more funding for the government’s global services, a decade after it stopped paying for most.
Last year, the BBC stopped broadcasting services in Arabic, Farsi and Hindi as part of plans to save £28.50 a year.
David told BBC Radio 4’s Today program on Monday that by contrast, “frankly, the evil forces – Russia, China and others – see the benefits of investing heavily in the media, close to Pure propaganda”.
He will tell the Future Resilience Forum on Monday that Russia and China are filling the gap by spending between £6bn and £8bn to expand their global media activities, including in countries such as Lebanon.
He said that in Lebanon, Russian-backed media were now transmitting on radio frequencies previously occupied by BBC Arabic.
Last month, BBC monitors listened to Russian output on the day thousands of pagers and radio equipment exploded.
“What they heard was an uncontested propaganda and narrative that was delivered to the local community,” Mr Davey is expected to say.
“If the BBC can retain our impartial broadcasts, it will be harder for local viewers to find this information.
“Against this backdrop, BBC World Service’s further withdrawal should cause serious global concern.”
The British government paid for the World Service in full until 2014, when it handed over most of the costs to the BBC.
Currently, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office contributes £104 million a year to the World Service’s total budget of £334 million.
The service reaches 320 million people each week through radio, television and digital output.
In 2022, the company decided to cease broadcasting in 10 languages and close more than 380 global service positions.
“We haven’t closed many language services yet,” David told Radio 4. He said the cuts were due to “a solution to financial constraints and there’s only so much you can ask of UK license fee payers”. Language service fees”.
“This has been government-funded for decades,” Mr David continued.
“There are very clear examples, for example, we removed BBC Arabic programming from the airwaves… [and] others come in [such as] Russian-backed media enters Lebanon.
“I have other examples of China and Russia deliberately spending billions of dollars to achieve this strategic goal.”
He added: “This has to be a long-term issue where central government decision-makers say, ‘OK, as a country we have to invest’ and I don’t think it’s appropriate to blame the government for all these costs.” UK licensing fees Payer.
“This is a strategic decision and one that I think we should take seriously.”
