BBC GLOBAL IMPACT ON WORLD'S MEDIA

Introduction

For over 70 years, the BBC has had a close relationship with this region and it is a privilege and an honour to have this opportunity to speak with you and add my thoughts to the debate and thinking about the challenges that face all broadcasters. This has been a period of unprecedented change in the media industry around the world - from the growth of 24/7 satellite news channels to the development of new forms of interactive digital media. There are many positives to this media revolution. It is transforming the way millions of people receive their news and information every day, and the range of sources they receive it from. It challenges monopolies of media power, and empowers the citizen by offering wider choice. Radio is now delivered in high quality sound and is available on the net wherever you are in the world - linking communities and diaspora around the globe in their common language. Television is delivered by satellite where the choices are almost limitless. There will still be times when you want a TV scheduler to provide the choice for you, but there's now the opportunity to opt out and go to your own personally selected alternatives.

Discussion

The massive impact of search engines like Google processing billions of enquiries has made a huge amount of information faster and easier to access than ever before. News and information can be downloaded instantly on portable devices like mobile phones, hand-held computers and laptops - on demand, wherever and whenever the audience wants it. This revolution crosses geographical boundaries; cultures and races. Every media organisation, no matter how small, can now reach a global audience (Davis, pp 56-373.

Indeed this opportunity to debate and engage with people of similar interests wherever they live means there is only international media now as the web makes national and local services semi-ubiquitous to those on the net. Radio phone-ins and debates are all now international. We are ALL global broadcasters now. Via cable, satellite and particularly the internet we can watch the output of channels and news services from anywhere in the world. I can watch not just CNN and Fox, but ABC, CBS, NBC in London. And Al Jazeera, and news from India, China and I can read newspapers from Israel, Egypt, Russia and beyond. Editorially that poses big challenges.

So for a well-established media organisation like the BBC - through the BBC World News television channel in English, BBC World Service on radio in 33 languages, and online through bbcnews.com - it means re-thinking the way we serve our global audiences. For the BBC Persian team - providing our multimedia news and information service available on radio, the web and, from this autumn, on television in the Farsi language - this has huge implications. These seismic changes represent a huge opportunity for broadcasters as new audiences become accessible to us. Commercially, however, it's an opportunity. Rather than a market of perhaps 20 million homes, ...