For economic reasons, the BBC Arabic radio station closed after 84 years of operation
The British Broadcasting Corporation announced the closure of Arab Radio within its global service, as part of a plan to restructure and move to digital platforms.
The plan included the abolition of 382 jobs, which the authority attributed to economic reasons, arguing that high inflation, high costs and the settlement of fixed cash license fees led to difficult choices.
The BBC said its global service needed to save 28.5 million pounds ($31 million) as part of broader cuts of 500 million pounds.
At the end of July, the network revealed plans to merge the BBC World News Channel with the local British channel of the network, and launch the new channel in April 2023. The BBC World Service currently broadcasts in 40 languages and is watched by about 364 million people weekly.
But audience habits are changing, according to the company, and more people are accessing news online, which means the move to “digital first” makes financial sense, especially given the high operating costs.
"Today's offerings involve a total net closure of 382 jobs," the company said in an online statement.
Eleven language services - Azerbaijani, Brazilian, Marathi, Mundo, Punjabi, Russian, Serbian, Sinhala, Thai, Turkish and Vietnamese - are mainly digital only.
And services in seven languages will join the digital services exclusively within the restructuring plans, which are services in Chinese, Gujarati, Igbo, Indonesian, Bidjin, Urdu and Yoruba.
Broadcasting services in Arabic (launched in 1938), Persian, Kyrgyz, Hindi, Bengali, Chinese, Indonesian, Tamil and Urdu will cease if proposals are approved by employees and unions.
No language service will stop, according to the British company, but some production centers will move outside London.
The Thai service will move to Bangkok, the Korean service to Seoul and the Bengali service to Dhaka.
Focus on Africa will be broadcast from Nairobi, according to the BBC.
The BBC's director of global service, Lillian Landor, said there was a "compelling case" for expanding digital services, with viewership more than doubling since 2018.
"The way the public accesses news and content is changing, and the challenge of reaching and engaging people around the world with quality and reliable journalism is growing," she added.
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