Patten backs more funding for BBC World News

The chairman of the BBC Trust Lord Patten, has said additional funding will be made available to BBC World News as the 24-hour news channel is brought closer to BBC World Service radio.

In an address to the Broadcasting Press Guild, Patten said that one of his obsessions was an improvement in the quality of BBC World News. “Through no fault of the present or recent management, or the performers, we’ve under-resourced even though it is the service that is watched more than any other and I hope that before long we’re going to see some improvement there.”

Under the 2010 licence fee settlement the BBC is taking on the funding of BBC World Service radio from the Foreign Office. Lord Patten said that from 2014 when the [commercially funded] BBC World News goes directly onto the BBC’s books it will be seen as part of the corporation’s offering to the world.

In the next few weeks BBC World News will move into the refurbished Broadcasting House in Central London from its present location within the television centre.