BBC News aims to increase access to its journalism, making a half-hour edition of Outside Source or World News available to other public broadcasters across Europe.
With immediate effect, the BBC will make available the 2000 GMT edition of Outside Source free of charge to broadcasters who are members of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
The show, normally presented by Ros Atkins (pictured above), is available to the EBU from Monday to Thursday. On Friday to Sunday, the BBC will make a standard BBC News bulletin available to EBU members. Most of the continent’s public broadcasters are members of the Geneva-based organisation.
In the UK, the EBU is perhaps most famous for arranging the Eurovision Song Contest. However, EBU members also collaborate in its news exchange as well as cultural programming.
BBC News is also launching TikTok accounts exclusively dedicated to videos about the war. These are available in Russian and in English.. The handles are @bbcnews and @bbcnewsrussian.
Jamie Angus, Senior Controller, News Output and Commissioning, says:
“Access to trusted, impartial and independent news is never more crucial than in times of conflict. We are always looking to find ways to ensure our news is available to those who need it most, on the platforms where they are. We welcome trusted European public broadcasters who want access to this daily bulletin via our partners at the EBU.”
About Outside Source
Outside Source is broadcast from 1900-2100 GMT on BBC World News and consists of four half-hour editions. The BBC News channel usually simulcasts the first hour, but as a result of recent events, the full two hours is being simulcast.
The programme is known for its analysis of the day’s events and explainers of current affairs, gathering information from outside sources – including news wires, video feeds and social media.
On Friday-Sunday, a regular news bulletin takes its slot.
News demand up
These moves follow a large increase in audiences for news bulletins. BBC News reports that audiences for the BBC News channel were up 57% last week year-on-year.
Updated figures show that in the last week of February, 200 million people turned to the BBC World Service’s digital news in languages other than English. Reach on social media in Russian tripled (with the biggest gains on Facebook) and in Ukrainian more than tripled.