The BBC Trust has approved plans to run advertising on a number of BBC World Service websites as well as in radio broadcasts for the first time in the corporation’s history. BBC World Service has been given the green light to run ads on the Arabic, Russian and Spanish websites, which the trust says will put it “on a par with the BBC’s international-facing website BBC.com”.
The World Service, which has seen its budget slashed by £46m a year resulting in more than 600 job losses, has been asked by the government to generate £3m from commercial activities by 2013/2014.
on Jan 5th, 2012 at 18:22
I\’d love to buy ads on radio 2…world service is a bad return on investment.
At least these days it is.
on Jan 5th, 2012 at 18:47
The Guardian article says something about putting ads on WS in English on FM in Berlin. But they recently switched frequencies in Berlin to one with lower power and less reach. But the idea of hearing ads on BBC WS in English is very strange.
on Jan 5th, 2012 at 18:56
I believe I read somewhere that BBCBrasil.com is BBC’s most popular foreign-language site. Surprised it’s not among those that got Trust’s permission to run ads.
on Jan 5th, 2012 at 20:10
The licence for 94.8 MHz in Berlin explicitely entitles the BBC to insert up to two minutes of advertisements per hour to cover the transmission costs. In fact I believed so far that this had already been implemented.
This current licence is valid until next June. It can be prolonged once. After this prolongation a new allocation procedure is necessary. In other words, the current constellation has not been established for eternity, at least by the German side.
on Jan 5th, 2012 at 20:38
Kai, are those commercials in English or German?
on Jan 6th, 2012 at 01:22
Nothing of strange, even the Vatican Radio run commercials during their normal programming.
on Jan 7th, 2012 at 10:33
Many public service broadcasters are running ads in radio and TV. BBC is a public Radio service. Sponsoring public service is very popular. High quality of radio and TV.