This week viewers to BBC World Information have been watching a collection of reviews specializing in the Arab uprisings, two years after they first started. Correspondents have been in Damascus, Tunis, Cairo, the Syria-Lebanon border and elsewhere. Their eyewitness TV reporting is accompanied by additional rationalization and evaluation on our web site, bbc.com/information. These are professional journalists, with years of expertise and information, residing the story on behalf of the viewers. They exhibit our dedication to reporting the world, and bringing readability to advanced occasions.
Till now, nevertheless, viewers on this planet’s largest TV market, the US, have discovered it arduous to entry BBC reporting of this type. The market is saturated with TV channels, however for the previous couple of years we have been very targeted on securing widespread carriage on the distribution techniques which convey TV into most houses.
So immediately the BBC is delighted to announce we now have agreed to a partnership with the US cable large – Time Warner Cable – and thru this and different offers, an additional 10 million houses within the US can have entry to BBC World Information 24 hours a day, seven days per week.
This implies by the tip of this 12 months we will likely be accessible in 25 million houses, together with these in many of the main markets – New York, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston. There’s nonetheless some option to go earlier than we are able to say we now have reached everybody – however 2012 has been a 12 months of great breakthroughs for us within the US.
The BBC is already well-known in America by way of its partnerships with public radio, by way of the success of our web site BBC.com/information, and due to our nightly broadcast on public tv fronted by Katty Kay. We imagine our model of high-quality, clever and non-partisan journalism has one thing to supply US audiences, and we’re decided to make entry to our companies so simple as doable.
The timing couldn’t be higher. We’re only a few weeks away from the primary broadcasts of BBC World Information from our model new headquarters in central London. Three new studios, a giant funding in manufacturing and journalism, and dealing extra intently with BBC journalists working in English and 27 different languages – it is greater than only a new dwelling, it is a new begin. We’re delighted to share that much more extensively.
Richard Porter is controller of English at BBC World Information
