Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 21
72nd Report - BBC World Service
Published 13 Mar 2026
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee BBC World Service 2024-25 All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
In response to real-terms reductions in World Service funding, the BBC has implemented three savings programmes since 2022 which cumulatively aimed to save £54.2 million by March 2026.42 The BBC has made savings to date through a variety of measures including the closure of Radio outputs in 13 languages and TV outputs in six languages.43 The BBC estimates these closures directly led to a fall in average weekly audiences of 30 million. Despite the importance of these decisions, the BBC did not clearly document how it ultimately made decisions, including which TV and radio outputs should be closed. This means that it is not possible to evaluate how decisions were ultimately made, or whether a clear and consistent rationale was applied across different regions.44
From: Public Accounts Committee, 72nd Report - BBC World Service (HC 1299), 13 March 2026
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 1 June 2026 (deadline 13 May 2026).