During the Cold War, when pretty much every African state was a dictatorship, the World Service’s signature tune, Lilliburlero, followed by its famous pips were instantly recognisable across the continent.
“The BBC was the dominant global broadcaster,” recalls Yusuf Hassan Abdi, a Kenyan MP from the country’s Somali minority who worked at the BBC for 11 years.
“In Africa, it had an almost cult-like following. In Somali-speaking regions of the Horn of Africa everything stopped at 5.30pm when the Somali service came on the air.”
The same was true in the Middle East, where the chimes of Big Ben, followed by the words “Huna London” (“This is London”) sounded on the hour for 85 years on BBC Arabic, the corporation’s oldest foreign language service.
No longer. In January 2023, BBC Arabic was taken off the air along with nine other foreign-language radio services, as the BBC scrambled to cut costs after the Government froze its licence fee. Another seven went online only.
Others quickly took advantage. Russia’s state-owned Sputnik News now broadcasts on the radio frequency previously used by BBC Arabic in Lebanon.
A similar story is taking place in Africa, notes Mr Abdi.
“People used to have strong bonds with the UK,” he said. “Now if you go round African villages and towns, or even into city offices, people are tuning into Chinese television and radio stations and they feel a greater connection to China than any other time I can think of.”
Even as the BBC has been forced to retrench, others have splurged to expand the reach of their respective state media.
China, in particular, has spent billions of pounds expanding the reach of its broadcasters, buying stakes in foreign media companies and reaching content-sharing agreements with others in its ruthless pursuit of a Beijing-dominated global information ecosystem.
Much of the strategy is focused on Africa, where the state news agency Xinhua has opened 37 bureaus.
While the BBC has significantly scaled back its presence in its under-utilised Nairobi bureau, Chinese media outfits now employ 500 people in Kenya – including several made redundant by the BBC in the 2022 cuts.
Meanwhile, StarTimes, a Chinese satellite and digital TV provider, is offering affordable packages to African consumers starting at just £2 a month – the catch being that the only Chinese news channels on offer.
It is an urgent problem that has left Britain struggling to counter the rise of “Russian and Chinese propaganda”, Tim Davie, the director general of the BBC, warned in a speech last month.
“The further retreat of the BBC World Service should be a cause for serious global concern,” he said, revealing that the closure of the Arabic and Persian radio services had seen the BBC’s global audience shrink by 40 million.
“When the World Service retreats, state-funded media operators move in to take advantage.”