Britain is struggling to counter an increase in “pure propaganda” from countries such as Russia and China due to cuts to the World Service, the BBC chief has warned.
Tim Davie called for more funding for global services, 10 years after governments stopped paying for most of them.
Last year, the BBC ended its Arabic, Farsi and Hindi radio services, among other services, as part of a plan to save £28.5m a year.
Mr Davie, speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, on Monday, by contrast, said: ‘Frankly, Russia, China and other malign forces have realized the benefits of investing heavily in media that borders on pure propaganda. “I’m doing it,” he said.
Russia and China are filling the gap by spending between £6bn and £8bn expanding their global media operations, including in countries like Lebanon, he will tell the Future Resilience Forum on Monday.
In Lebanon, Russian-backed media continues to broadcast on radio frequencies previously occupied by BBC Arabic, he said.
BBC Monitoring heard the Russian report on the day thousands of pagers and radio equipment exploded last month.
“What they heard was veritable propaganda and stories being told to the community,” Davey said.
“If the BBC had been able to maintain an unbiased radio output, it would have been much harder for local viewers to find these messages.
“In this context, a further setback for the BBC World Service should be a cause for serious global concern.”
The British government paid the full cost of the World Service until 2014, when it handed most of the costs over to the BBC.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office currently pays £104 million a year against the World Office’s total budget of £366 million.
The service is delivered to 320 million people each week through radio, television and digital output.
The company has decided to cease radio broadcasting in 10 languages in 2022 and close more than 380 World Service jobs.
Mr Davie told Radio 4: “We are not closing many language services”, adding that the cuts were “the result of a difficult funding settlement and there is only so much we can ask UK fee payers to do”. “There is,” he said. This is to pay for language services. ”
“For decades this has been funded by the government,” Davey continued.
“There are very obvious examples, such as our radio coverage of BBC Arabic… (and) other examples include Russian-backed media coming into Lebanon.
“There are other examples of China and Russia intentionally spending billions of dollars on their strategic goals.”
He added: “This has to be a long-term issue for central government decision-making to say, ‘Okay, we have to invest as a country,’ and it’s not appropriate to put all of that on the government. I think so,” he added. UK license fee payer.
“This is a strategic decision and I think we should evaluate it.”
A UK government spokesperson said: “We are committed to the success of the BBC World Service, which continues to provide essential, unbiased and accurate news reporting and programming to millions of people around the world.”
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy responded to Mr Davey’s comments, saying on BBC Radio 5 Live: The BBC World Service is a light on the hill for people around the world.
“But he is also very aware of the severe pressures on public finances that we have inherited after a decade and a half of economic mismanagement. So that’s what we’re going to be talking about… license fees But the process to update the BBC’s charter is also expected to begin early next year. ”
