The BBC’s World Service has launching its biggest expansion in 70 years with 12 new language services delivering news and information.

Part of a £289 million investment announced last November, the BBC is now delivering a  news service in Nigerian Pidgin, Nigerian Pidgin, a largely oral language spoken widely both in Nigeria and in countries across West and Central Africa.

In addition to Pidgin, BBC is adding Afaan Oromo, Amharic, Tigrinya, Igbo, and Yoruba in Africa.

After the expansion, teams in Asia will make up roughly half the BBC World Service workforce. India is getting four new language services in Gujarati, Telugu, Marathi, and Punjabi.

Its Korean language service will cater to South Korea as well as some listeners in North Korea. Later next year, it will offer Serbian as well.

The expansion will also see enhanced existing language services with new digital formats, increased TV programming, and more overall original reporting. There will be more than 1,300 new staff.

The World Service already publishes in 28 languages around the world but its ultimate goal is to double its current worldwide reach to 500 million people by 2022.

The BBC is just one of several large media organisations with global plans.

The New York Times is investing $US50 million over three years to expand its non-U.S. audience and to grow its subscriber base abroad.

But the BBC’s expansion is unmatched in scale, and unmatched among news organisations in the resources thrown behind it. It is hiring locally in places where experienced journalists are fewer and press freedom is severely limited.

“There are countries of need, where the BBC needs to be providing impartial, independent, and international information and news and analysis,” said Dmitry Shiskin, digital development editor at BBC World Service.

“And then there are markets of want, where we need to be bringing value into the overall media market and the overall conversation,” Mr Shiskin told media outlets.

With the proliferation of news sources around the world — there is underway a mobile revolution in media especially in Africa, India, and Asia.

The BBC’s strategy is not to be another provider of local news but to bring global news to each country and to report to the rest of the world on events taking place there.

The BBC groups its language services into six regions so that editors can analyse data on story performance and make recommendations on how to improve coverage and increase reach.

Laurie Nowell
AMES Australia Senior Journalist