Six years too late...

My soon-to-be-sent letter to the director of the BBC World Service...


Nigel Chapman Director, BBC World Service BBC World Service Bush House
Strand London WC2B 4PH
The United Kingdom


Dear Sir,


As an expatriate, London-based New Zealander, I have recently stumbled upon (via the web), the information that on 1st July 2001 your predecessor Mark Byford cancelled The BBC World Service shortwave service to Canada, The United States, Australia and New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.

Sorry, come again? I mean, can this be true? The very service founded to broadcast to the old Empire has now turned its back on much of today’s Commonwealth?

I may be writing six years too late, but as an NZ passport holder, BBC licence fee payer and UK resident and tax payer of some ten years’ standing, I find this to be an appalling state of affairs.

The internet is not a substitute for portable radio; it feels to me as though you have decided to cut-off most of the English-speaking world.

For myself, I’m a radio man. I adore the World Service and Radio Four, and while I now work in marketing at a City firm, I used to be variously: a radio announcer, a character voiceover, and a commercial radio copywriter at various New Zealand stations; then later a copywriter at Bristol’s GWR-fm and Warwickshire’s Mercia-fm.

Before emigrating to Britain, I used to listen to the World Service; I particularly enjoyed shows from the late John Peel. When he declared Flying Nun to be among the most important recording labels in the world, I know many of my generation of young punk-rocking Kiwis felt a sense of affirmation and pride. That affirmation of an obscure set of garage bands down under – who were often derided at home – was a boost to those of us who kicked against what was largely a parochial ‘cargo’ culture.

This is just a small example of the sort of thing that the BBC World Service is supposed to foster.

I understand and would encourage The BBC’s remit to reach out to many global communities, but how can your actions to us native English speakers be even remotely justifiable? Regardless of one’s politics, these are troubled times. I feel I have to ask, don’t the BBC – or Britain – realise who their friends are? Surely, the BBC should be doing all it can to foster a grounded sense of the Anglo-sphere – or would you rather leave all the playing to the extremists of Fox News?

So, my request is this; restore the shortwave service to the English-speaking world, petition the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to give you the money. The BBC World Service’s key role is to broadcast Britain’s news, views and culture to the world, not just select chunks of it. To effectively cut-off North America, Australasia and the South Pacific from your service is, in the parlance of our times, a “Diss” – a disservice and a disrespect.


Yours sincerely,




Craig Young