Image copyright AFP Image caption A view of Pyongyang - a key focus of the service is North Korea...

The BBC has launched a Korean service as part of an expansion of its foreign language outlets.

The service, which began broadcasts on Tuesday, will provide news, sport, business and culture through a website and radio transmissions.

A key focus of the service is North Korea, where government censorship restricts access to independent news.

Korean is one of 12 new BBC language services funded by a £291m ($400m) grant from the British government.

The director of the BBC World Service, Francesca Unsworth, said: "BBC News Korean will build on the long-standing reputation for fairness and impartiality the BBC World Service has earned all over the world.

The service will be aimed at audiences in the Korean peninsula and Korean speakers around the world.

The service's journalists will be based in Seoul, London and Washington and will draw on the full extent of the BBC's global network of correspondents.

The BBC World Service is currently launching in 12 new languages - Afaan Oromo, Amharic, Gujarati, Igbo, Korean, Marathi, Pidgin, Punjabi, Serbian, Telugu, Tigrinya and Yoruba. </s> The BBC has launched a Korean service as part of an expansion of its foreign language outlets.

The service, which began broadcasts on Tuesday, will provide news, sport, business and culture through a website and radio transmissions.

A primary focus of the service is North Korea, where government censorship restricts access to independent news.

Korean is one of 12 new BBC language services funded by a £291m ($400m) grant from the British government.

The director of the BBC World Service, Francesca Unsworth, said: "BBC News Korean will build on the long-standing reputation for fairness and impartiality the BBC World Service has earned all over the world."

The service's journalists will be based in Seoul, London and Washington and will draw on the full extent of the BBC's global network of correspondents.

The BBC World Service is currently launching in 12 new languages - Afaan Oromo, Amharic, Gujarati, Igbo, Korean, Marathi, Pidgin, Punjabi, Serbian, Telugu, Tigrinya and Yoruba. </s> The BBC launched a new Korean language radio and online service on Tuesday that will be available to listeners in North Korea if the signal is not blocked.

The service, a part of the BBC's biggest global expansion since the 1940s, will have a dedicated team of journalists in Seoul, London and Washington.

"Audiences in the Korean peninsula and Korean speakers around the world can now hear radio broadcasts and access the latest news online," the BBC World Service said in a statement.

"BBC News Korean will build on the long-standing reputation for fairness and impartiality the BBC World Service has earned all over the world," said Francesca Unsworth, director of the BBC World Service.

A BBC World Service spokesman said without giving further details that monitoring by the BBC had shown that "at least part" of the new broadcasts were getting through to North Korea despite "jamming".

The service is broadcast on shortwave for three hours a day and one hour on medium wave, seven days a week.

The BBC in its statement provided the times for the transmissions both in Seoul and Pyongyang.

Listeners could face heavy punishment for tuning in in North Korea, which was ranked the second worst country in the world for censorship after Turkmenistan by US human rights group Freedom House.

Korean is one of 12 new BBC services being rolled out this year thanks to a £291 million (332 million euro, $393 million) grant from the British government, including broadcasts in Pidgin, Punjabi and Yoruba. </s> The BBC is braced for a backlash from the North Korean government about the launch of a new service targeted at the country amid growing international tensions over its nuclear missile tests.

Francesca Unsworth, the director of BBC World Service, said the corporation was wary about launching the new North Korean service next month due to the likely opposition from the government but insisted the fragile political situation vindicated the move.

In an interview with the Guardian, she said: “We are reaching an incredibly febrile, dangerous atmosphere at the moment about that whole story, and isn’t it terrible for the people of North Korea that the only information that they getting about any of this is that woman who goes on North Korean television every night?

“We talked for many years about whether it was worthwhile doing something for the most in-need country of the world. This is right at the head of the BBC’s mission to bring independent news to people most in need – and Korea is the country most in need, followed by Ethiopia and Eritrea.”

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The service will launch just weeks after Donald Trump, the US president, threatened to unleash “fire and fury” on North Korea, which responded by announcing a detailed plan to fire missiles at the US Pacific territory of Guam.

Korean is one of 12 new language services being launched by the BBC over the next few weeks in the biggest expansion of the World Service since the 1940s. The expansion involves hiring 1,400 staff and is backed by £289m of funding from the government. Other services that are launching include Pidgin, which is spoken by 75 million people in Nigeria, Punjabi and Serbian.

Tony Hall, director general of the BBC, said the new services marked “the start of a new chapter for the BBC” and called the World Service “one of the UK’s most important cultural exports”.

However, Unsworth said the North Korean embassy in London had told the BBC “in no uncertain terms” that they did not want the Korean service to be launched.

The service will broadcast a half-hour radio programme daily, that will go out in the middle of the night so that, in the words of Unsworth, “people have the opportunity to listen under their bedclothes without telling the neighbours”.

On the potential reaction of North Korea, she added: “I met with the embassy here in London and they told us in no uncertain terms that they didn’t want us to launch this service. But one of the things I did say to them, and I think that this is important, is that we are not dissident radio.

“We are there to explain their perspective on this, we are not there to be the voice of opposition. But of course we are not on the side of governments, we are there on the side of people. That is our remit and it always has been.

Half the Korean team will be based in London with the other half in Seoul. At least one person in the team has a North Korean background.

Unsworth said it was a “tough challenge” trying to ensure the service reaches audiences in North Korea but pointed to research by KBS, the South Korean broadcaster, which found that a third of defectors from the country claim to have had access to foreign broadcasts. She also said evidence suggests that young people in North Korea are not as beholden to the regime as their parents and there is an appetite for learning information not provided by the government.



Unsworth joined BBC local radio in 1980 before rising up the ranks to become home news editor, then head of political programmes and head of newsgathering. She was named the boss of the World Service in 2014.

Unsworth said the World Service has become even more important due to the spread of fake news and the expansion of state-backed services such as Russia Today and Chinese news providers in Africa.

BBC faces new pay row over gap between World Service and news Read more

“If RT were to criticise the Kremlin they would be off the air quite quickly, whereas if the BBC holds British foreign policy or anything up to scrutiny, well we are not going to be off the air,” she said. “The Foreign Office may be writing the cheques [to fund the World Service] but there is no question that they would be able to phone up and influence any editorial agenda that we are doing.

“In a way the ones that I am more worried about are the Chinese. The Chinese are investing in Africa for instance big time and and they really recognise that if you are going to put investment into infrastructure in these countries then the broadcasting media landscape goes alongside that.

“We are in danger of handing over the international media space to people who do not have the values of independence, free and fair without favour, and they are not impartial. All over the world I see our services operating in countries increasingly under pressure from governments clamping down on media freedom.”

World Service is expanding at a time when the BBC find itself under scrutiny about pay. The publication of the salaries paid to the BBC’s top earners led to criticism about a gender pay gap at the corporation while PwC, the accountancy firm, was hired to review apparent disparities between how much employees on the World Service are paid compared to those in the UK news department.

Unsworth refused to reveal the details about the review but said she would be writing to staff about it in the next few weeks. She added: “Obviously the staff think there is an issue or they wouldn’t have asked us to look at it. So we are looking at it.”

The World Service boss admitted that the publication of the list of salaries paid to stars such as Chris Evans had affected the mood at the BBC.

“I would be lying if I said it hadn’t. There is a bit of a febrile atmosphere I would say, in all truth,” she said. </s> The BBC World Service has today launched the first of 12 new language services as part of its biggest expansion since the 1940s, backed by £289m in Government funding.

A digital Pidgin service for West Africa will stream the news to some 75m speakers in Nigeria alone with others in Cameroon, Ghana and Equitorial New Guinea.

Other digital and radio services, including in Korean, are to follow over the coming months. The additional services will mean BBC News will operate in more than 40 languages.

BBC director Tony Hall said the expansion marked “the start of a new chapter for the BBC”.

“The BBC World Service is one of the UK’s most important cultural exports,” he said.

“In a world of anxieties about ‘fake news’, where media freedom is being curtailed rather than expanded, the role of an independent, impartial news provider is more important than ever.

“The new services we’re launching will reach some of the most under-served audiences in the world.”

World Service director Francesca Unsworth said the expansion would “also bring benefits to audiences in the UK”.

“Having more journalists on the ground will enrich our international reporting, bringing news from areas which are often under-reported,” she said.

The BBC World Service has broadcast news to people across the globe for more than 80 years, beginning life as the BBC Empire Service in 1932.

The new Pidgin service is fully digital with six daily editions of BBC Minute – a 60-second audio news update – and two daily news video bulletins (coming in November).

Two additinal services for West Africa – in Yoruba and Igbo – will launch at the beginning of next year.

The new language services include: Afaan Oromo, Amharic, Gujarati, Igbo, Korean, Marathi, Pidgin, Punjabi, Serbian, Telugu, Tigrinya, and Yoruba. </s> August 21st, BBC Pidgin launched today as part of the biggest expansion of the World Service since the 1940s.BBC Pidgin the first African digital service will provide impartial news, current affairs and analysis of Nigeria, West and Central Africa - as well as international news from the BBC’s global network of correspondents. The new service will also provide the BBC’s global audience with a better understanding of the region.

The new digital service – aimed at younger and female audiences – will also feature BBC Minute, broadcasting six times a day, with a round up of the world in 60 seconds available online and social. New programming will also feature a specially commissioned drama which will illustrate the beauty of the language and the fun people have in following the language

World Service Director Francesca Unsworth said:

“For more than eighty years the BBC World Service has brought trusted news to millions across the globe. I’m delighted that millions of people in Nigeria and beyond, will be able to access the BBC in such a popular language as Pidgin.”

Editorial lead Bilkisu Labaran, said:

“We are so proud to be launching the BBC’s first digital service in Africa. Pidgin is the language spoken among so many people across West and Central Africa and for the first time we will be connecting with the next generation of speakers. Pidgin is the common thread in the region, the language of unity spoken by people from all walks of life, and we are excited at the prospect of providing this service”

BBC Pidgin will aim to serve a younger audience and women with social media playing a key role. In addition to news and current affairs, there will be extensive coverage of culture, entertainment, entrepreneurship, science & technology, health and sport – including the English Premier League.

Pidgin is spoken by 75m people in Nigeria alone, with additional speakers in Cameroon, Ghana, and Equatorial Guinea. It is primarily an oral language, without a standard agreed written form. With the introduction of this new service the BBC hopes to contribute to the development of this language. </s> A new language service for digital platforms in English-based Pidgin for West and Central Africa has been launched by the BBC World Service.

Pidgin is one of the most widely-spoken languages across the region, even though it is not officially recognised.

The launch is part of the World Service’s biggest expansion since the 1940s, following a government funding boost announced in 2016.

Pidgin will soon be joined by 10 more new services in Africa and Asia.

The WS also plans to offer more mobile and video content and a greater social media presence.

It will also enhance its television services across Africa, including more than 30 new TV programmes for partner broadcasters in sub-Saharan Africa.

Arabic and Russian programming will also be boosted in the 2020 project.
• A mix of English and local languages enabling people who do not share a common language to communicate
• West African Pidgin English was a language of commerce spoken along the coast during the Atlantic slave trade in the late 17th and 18th Centuries.
• Widely used in Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea

It is hard to know the exact number of Pidgin speakers, as it is not formally studied in schools and is spoken with varying degrees of proficiency.

But in Nigeria it is estimated that some three to five million people use it as their first language in day-to-day interactions.

It is said to be a second language to a much higher number of up to 75 million people in Nigeria alone – about half the population.

And it is also widely spoken in other countries in the region.

“It’s an informal lingua franca. It is a language that really unites people and cuts across all sorts of barriers – ethnic, regional and socio-economic,” says Bilkisu Labaran, editorial lead of the new BBC service.

Although an exclusively Pidgin radio station Wazobia FM was founded some 10 years ago, the BBC will be the first to offer online services in digital platforms.

Precisely because of its informality, it does not currently have a standardised written form.

“The BBC is going to be a pioneer in this area,” says Ms Labaran, a fluent Pidgin speaker. She sees a challenge ahead – but also an opportunity in the anticipated debate on harmonising the written and spoken word.

What is on offer?

BBC Pidgin will provide a mix of local, regional and international news current affairs and analysis – bringing the world to the region and vice-versa.

The corporation says the new digital service will also aim to serve a younger audience and women with social media playing a key role.

So in addition there will be “extensive coverage of culture, entertainment, entrepreneurship, science and technology, health and sport – including the English Premier League”.

The production hub is based in Lagos, the commercial capital, but reporters in Ghana and Cameroon as well as Nigeria itself will also be on the ground gathering news.

In addition to Pidgin, Nigerians will also soon be able to access services for Yoruba and Igbo , complementing the current Hausa service and English output.

As well as at bbc.com/pidgin the new service is also on Facebook and Instagram. </s> Yangon: The BBC's Burmese language service on Monday said it was pulling a broadcasting deal with a popular Myanmar television channel citing "censorship" as the two partners clashed over coverage of the Muslim Rohingya minority.

The announcement is the latest blow to struggling press freedoms in the country and a remarkable turnaround for a news organisation that famously kept Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi up to date during her long years of house arrest under junta rule.

Since April 2014, BBC Burmese broadcast a daily news programme on MNTV with 3.7 million daily viewers.

On Monday, the BBC said it was ending the deal after MNTV pulled multiple programmes since March this year.

"The BBC cannot accept interference or censorship of BBC programs by joint-venture TV broadcasters as that violates the trust between the BBC and its audience," a report on the BBC's Burmese website said.

The BBC statement did not detail what content was censored.

But in a statement MNTV, a joint venture between private and state media, said it began pulling reports to comply with government orders over "restricted" words.

"The BBC Burmese program sent news that included wordings that are restricted by the state government," the statement said.

A station official said the problematic word was "Rohingya".

"That's why we cannot broadcast their service," the employee said, asking not to be named.

The Rohingya are a stateless Muslim minority in Myanmar's western Rakhine who face severe state-sanctioned persecution and have fled in droves in recent years.

Most international media call them Rohingya because the community has long self-identified that way.

But Myanmar's government — and most local media — call them Bengalis, portraying them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh despite many living in the country for generations.

Last week Suu Kyi's government called on media to only refer to militants as "extremist terrorists".

While local media have largely complied, the order was reminiscent of the years under the junta when the press was ordered what to write.

Hopes had been high that the new government of democracy icon Suu Kyi would usher in an era of free speech when they took power last year after half a century of military rule.

Suu Kyi was confined for years to a lakeside Yangon house under the junta but used to listen to the World Service and its Burmese language offshoot on her radio. </s> LONDON, March 17 (Reuters) - The BBC apologised on Monday to a leading British university for sending two undercover reporters to accompany an academic trip to North Korea, after an internal investigation found that it had failed to inform students of the potential risks.

The publicly funded BBC joined the trip to North Korea for students and post-graduates of the London School of Economics (LSE) in March 2013.

Two undercover journalists - including the respected reporter John Sweeney - attached themselves to the group to gain access to the secretive state and film a documentary for Panorama, a current affairs programme.

The general secretary of the LSE’s student union accused the BBC at the time of using the students as “human shields”.

The university said the students had been told “a journalist” would accompany them, but it had not been made clear the BBC’s aim was to use the visit to secretly record footage for Panorama, a current affairs programme.

James Harding, the director of BBC news and current affairs, wrote to the chairman of the LSE, Peter Sutherland, saying that he accepted the corporation had fallen short. “On behalf of the BBC, I would like to apologise to you and the LSE,” he said.

The BBC’s Editorial Standards Committee said the broadcaster had not adequately informed the students about the BBC’s involvement so that they would be aware of any risks posed by the presence of the journalists.

“This was a serious failing, and the BBC is right to apologise to the complainants,” said Alison Hastings, Chair of the Editorial Standards Committee.

The LSE and the father of one of the students on the trip made a series of complaints to the BBC after news of its involvement in the trip surfaced last year. (Reporting by Julia Fioretti, editing by Costas Pitas)
The BBC plans to launch a service in Korean.