> 3 - Why do I, as a UK resident, have to provide money so that someone in Vietnam can access our state news? Up until a few years ago you didn't. In the news

> 3 - Why do I, as a UK resident, have to provide money so that someone in Vietnam can access our state news? Up until a few years ago you didn't. In the news + current affairs genre there was 1) UK output (Huw Edwards, News24, Panorama, etc) -- licence fee funded 2) World service (mainly radio, in a variety of languages) -- funded direct from the foreign office 3) World News TV (English language TV station) -- commercially funded However the government of the time told the BBC they had to continue to fund World Service, but stopped the grant in aid. This meant that Doris in Dudley had to pay for Radio Hausa broadcasting from Abuja. Hausa is good for the UK (soft power), but it should be funded by the foreign office. To add confusion, a couple of years ago the government then decided to invest £300m over 4 years to expand the world service reach - this money came from the foreign office. Then there's more confusion. Many reporters for world service are expected to file into UK news too. If there's a news story in Vietnam that breaks, it will be nominally world service reporters who are on the scene reporting. Even if it's a planned event, like the Trump/Kim summit, local WS staff will be planning and often staffing that event, even if Huw Edwards is flown out to cover it, so there is still a tangential benefit