BBC takes radio news lead in Iraq

BBC World Service remains the world's largest radio broadcaster

BBC World Service is the largest international radio news broadcaster in Iraq, audience figures show.

The launch of FM broadcasts in Baghdad, Basra and other major cities gained a weekly audience of 1.8 million, latest figures showed.

The figures, released on Monday, also showed a 60% weekly reach in the Afghanistan capital of Kabul.

Globally, there were 146m weekly World Service listeners in 2004, down from 150m in 2003.

Short wave decline

BBC World Service attributed the global audience decline to a significant drop in short wave radio listening year-on-year, which has been partly offset by a rise in FM audiences.

"Short wave listening is in long-term decline as audiences demand better audibility," BBC World Service's Acting Director Nigel Chapman said.

"It is sometimes difficult to find suitable FM partners in some countries or to overcome regulatory obstacles, like bans on international news broadcasting on local FMs," he added.

BBC WORLD SERVICE Available on FM in 139 capital cities Global English language audience: 45 million Half total audience comes from Africa and Middle East In Ghana, BBC is the country's leading station In Tanzania, 6 out of 10 people are regular listeners US audience increased from 3.9m to record 4.7m One in five opinion formers in New York and Washington listen each week In the UK, 1.3m are regular listeners Significant gains in Uganda, Egypt, Bolivia and Turkey Significant losses in Western Europe, Saudi Arabia, India, Bangladesh and Russia Source: BBC World Service

Despite the decline, the World Service still has about 50% more listeners than comparable broadcasters.

A selection of 16 surveys from key markets showed that BBC World Service was the most trusted and objective international broadcaster.

Rapid online increase

A survey earlier this year of the audience in Iraq provisionally indicated an increased audience of 3.3m in the country, and revealed that one in four people listen to the BBC World Service in Baghdad.

"Taken as a whole, the use of the BBC World Service - both on radio and online - remains broadly constant," said Nigel Chapman.

The service has extended its reach with rapid growth in online usage, particularly among younger audiences.

Monthly page impressions rose from 228m in March 2003 - a high figure due to the Iraq war - to a record 279m a year later.

This equates to over 16m individual monthly users, many of them young people who would not be attracted to short wave listening.

It also represents a doubling of unique users from February 2003, when the figure stood at 8.5m monthly users.