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The World Service is 90

Calling the world since 1932. Meet the journalists and hear the treasured archive.

For 90 years the Â鶹ÊÓƵAV World Service has been broadcasting in dozens of languages to audiences so huge they are counted in the tens of millions all over the globe. World Service began transmitting on 19 December 1932. It was called the Â鶹ÊÓƵAV Empire Service, speaking in slow English via crackly short-wave radio to a now-vanished Empire which then ruled a fifth of the globe.

The Second World War saw radio services expand massively, broadcasting in more than 40 languages to listeners hungry for truth and facts they could trust. In every crisis and conflict since, individual voices out of the air have offered news, but also drama, music, education and sometimes hope to their audiences.

In a special 90th anniversary programme, the broadcaster Nick Rankin, who worked for more than 20 years at the Â鶹ÊÓƵAV, digs into a treasure trove of sound archive and talks to journalists who made and still make the Â鶹ÊÓƵAV World Service such a remarkable network. With Peter Pallai of Hungarian Section; Seva Novgorodsev MBE, star of Â鶹ÊÓƵAV Russian Service; Najiba Kasraee, broadcasting to Afghanistan and Elizabeth Ohene from Focus on Africa.

Sound recordings from Bush House by Robin the Fog and Howlround.

Producer: Monica Whitlock

Image: The Â鶹ÊÓƵAV Empire Service studio in 1934 (Credit: Â鶹ÊÓƵAV)

Available now

50 minutes

Last on

Mon 19 Dec 2022 08:32GMT

Broadcasts

  • Sat 17 Dec 2022 19:06GMT
  • Sun 18 Dec 2022 12:06GMT
  • Sun 18 Dec 2022 16:06GMT
  • Mon 19 Dec 2022 08:32GMT