BBC to retain evening news programme in Hindi
The BBC World Service has decided to retain an evening news and current affairs radio broadcast for one hour in Hindi for its Indian audiences for an interim period.
After much furore over the decision of the BBC to close its news and current affairs radio output in Hindi in India, the organisation on March 8, 2011, announced that it was retaining evening news and current affairs radio broadcast of one hour in Hindi for its Indian audiences for the interim period.
It may be recalled that on January 26, 2011, the BBC had taken the decision to discontinue its Hindi services as part of the outcome of its Spending Review 2010 settlement. Since the announcement, there has been much public discussion of the potential for retaining some of this service and the BBC has been approached by a number of commercial parties with alternative funding proposals.
In order to explore these proposals further, the BBC World Service has decided to retain an evening news and current affairs radio broadcast. This broadcast will be available on all platforms via SW, online and mobile.
The BBC also said that if sustainable commercial funding for this service could not be found during the 2011-12 financial year, they would then have to close it by March 2012.
