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The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ attracts a record weekly global audience of 241 million people to its international news services like ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World Service and the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World News television channel, according to independent surveys. This is up three million on last year's overall audience estimate.

However, the multimedia ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World Service lost 20 million short wave radio listeners during the year; reflecting the increasing global decline of the medium.

But during the year ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World Service attracted around nine million new viewers to its television, online and mobile services; in addition to new listeners to ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ radio programmes through local FM and medium wave radio partner stations in a number of countries.

³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Global News Director, Peter Horrocks, said: "³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Global News's record audience demonstrates that people come to us for journalism that is challenging and asks difficult questions, yet respects different points of view and actively encourages debate.

"The figures also show the success of our multimedia strategy and investments for global audiences. But the continued dramatic decline in short wave listening shows that those audiences are rapidly changing the way they access international news. Unless ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World Service can accelerate its response to those changes, it will face a rapid deterioration of its impact as other technologies become more prominent in international media markets."

³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World Service

³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World Service drew an overall weekly multimedia audience of 180 million across television, radio, online and mobiles. This is eight million down on last year.

The audience losses were mainly due to a sharp overall decline in short wave radio listening during the year. Radio audience losses were particularly dramatic in Bangladesh (-7 million), India (-8.2m), and Nigeria (-2.9 m).

However, there were significant radio audience gains in Tanzania (+1.4m), and the US (+ 600,000), mainly through ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ programmes being used on local FM and medium wave radio partner stations.

The multimedia ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Arabic service attracted an audience of 22 million a week, including 12 million watching ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Arabic television.

The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Persian multimedia news and information service was hampered by the jamming of its newly launched TV satellite service and the continued blocking of its online service by the Iranian authorities. However, in a hostile environment for research, the independent surveys indicated audiences of 3.4 million, including 3.1 million watching ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Persian television in Iran.

Together the channels contributed a 72% increase in the estimated audience of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World Service's non-English television services.

³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World Service continued to have strong impact in Afghanistan, where ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ audiences are 10 million; and in Iraq where the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ reaches 4.5 million people each week. In Burma, the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ now reaches 8.5 million listeners, up 1.4 million on the last survey.

³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's commercial international news services

³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World News and bbc.com/news – the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ commercial international television and online news services – attracted a combined global audience of 83 million.

³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World News has a weekly audience of 71 million.

The news, weather and sport sections of the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's international commercial site, bbc.com, increased to more than 17.2 million unique users every week.

It also attracted more than 1.1million unique users in February 2010 accessing mobile news, weather and sport content from ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Global News every week. By April, this had increased to 1.5 million unique users every week. There has been an increase of 120% in page impressions in the last year. Mobile traffic to news pages alone on the bbc.com mobile site increased tenfold.

Notes to Editors

³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World Service is an international multimedia broadcaster delivering 32 language and regional services, including: Albanian, Arabic, Azeri, Bengali, Burmese, Cantonese, English, English for Africa, English for the Caribbean, French for Africa, Hausa, Hindi, Indonesian, Kinyarwanda/Kirundi, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mandarin, Nepali, Pashto, Persian, Portuguese for Africa, Portuguese for Brazil, Russian, Serbian, Sinhala, Somali, Spanish for Latin America, Swahili, Tamil, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, and Vietnamese.

It uses multiple platforms to reach its weekly audience of 180 million globally, including shortwave, AM, FM, digital satellite and cable channels. Its news sites, which received 7.3 million weekly visitors in March 2010, include audio and video content and offer opportunities to join the global debate. It has around 2,000 partner radio stations which take ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ content, and numerous partnerships supplying content to mobile phones and other wireless handheld devices. For more information, visit bbcworldservice.com. For a weekly alert about ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World Service programmes, sign up for the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World Agenda e-guide at bbcworldservice.com/eguide.

³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World News, the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's commercially funded international 24-hour news and information channel, is owned and operated by ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World News Ltd, a member of the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's commercial group of companies. ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World News attracts 71 million viewers a week, is available in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide, and reaches 303 million households and more than 1.8 million hotel rooms. The channel's content is also available on 81 cruise ships, 46 airlines, 36 mobile phone networks and a number of major online platforms including bbc.com/news. For further information on how to receive ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World News, download schedules or find out more about the channel, visit bbcworldnews.com.

The new ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World Service global audience estimate is derived from a comprehensive programme of independent audience research. This year's figure incorporates new data from 25 countries – some 57% of this year's audience.

The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World News audience figure is compiled from multiple surveys (syndicated, omnibus and specifically commissioned) from over 100 countries.

The surveys are carried out by independent market research groups and comply with international standards of audience research.

³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World Service Publicity