The end of BBC Caribbean Service

David Jessop, Contributor

On January 25, the BBC World Service announced that as part of a new funding arrangement with the British government, it will be cutting the broadcaster's budget by 16 per cent, or by around US$73 million (£46 million) per annum.In doing so, it will be significantly reducing the numbers it employs and reducing the range of the programming and services it offers to many regions of the world including the Caribbean.

The decision almost certainly spells the end for the BBC Caribbean Service in English, which as matters stand, will cease broadcasting to the region at the end of March, along with a service in Spanish for Cuba.

The official reason for this and other cuts is that the relationship between the BBC World Service and the United Kingdom government has changed.

33 per cent budget cut

As part of the UK government's overall spending review, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which funds the BBC World Service, will see a 33 per cent reduction in its budget, a significant proportion of which will be achieved by a cut in funding for the BBC World Service.

This means that in the period up to 2014, the World Service will receive a much-reduced grant, and then from 2014 onwards, it will be paid for out of the BBC's income from UK television licence fees.

According to officials, under the new devolved arrangement, the UK foreign secretary will retain his veto over any future decision to reduce the geographical range of services provided by Bush House, which, put another way, seems also to mean that he or she can direct which services should continue or will be prioritised.

In the case of the BBC Caribbean Service and its approximate US$800,000 (£500,000) budget, it would appear that at a foreign-policy level, the region was not considered significant enough for political intervention; and then at a senior-management level, the feeling was to suggest that the Caribbean Service would not be missed as the region had a complex web of print and broadcast media.

Put another way, the BBC's management, in an effort to justify cutting the service, seems to have convinced itself that the void it is creating will be filled by local media, and in doing so, failing to understand the complexities of the region or to recognise that there is virtually no consistent rebroadcast pan-Caribbean radio programming, let alone the funding or the commercial desire to provide such coverage.

The reality of what happens next is likely to be somewhat different to what the BBC's management believes.

With the dismantling of its Caribbean Service, its specialist team of independent Caribbean staff, who have become well known and trusted across the region, will depart, and what little that was left that represented daily regional broadcasting in the Caribbean will disappear for ever.

As a consequence, leading figures in public life will in the future find it virtually impossible to present their views to a region-wide radio audience, and the broad and balanced approach that the Caribbean Service provided to a truly pan-Caribbean audience is unlikely to be replaced. Moreover, the BBC will become a weaker news institution as the in-house expertise and contacts that the Caribbean Service provided to the BBC newsroom and other regional services at times of intense media interest -for example, on Haiti and Jamaica - evaporates.

More significantly still, the decision suggests the further dismantling of the UK's interest in the region at a time when the influence of others that the UK is unsure of is growing. So much so that the decision could be read as a sign that the UK's role in the world is in decline and its straightened economic circumstances are forcing it to reconsider its relationships.

That this is happening when others including China, Brazil, Venezuela and in the longer term India are seeing value in developing a strategic relationship with the region, suggests that Britain's once-intimate involvement is being set aside. This is despite its stated concerns about Caribbean security, consular issues, a role for the Caribbean diaspora in the UK, organised crime, and the governance of overseas territories.

Short-sighted decision

Logically, the BBC Caribbean Service's demise ought to offer an opportunity for a regional news provider to step in to fill the void. However, unless such institutions can find an external donor, benefactor, or commercial sponsor that will significantly enhance capacity and training, while demonstrating a willingness to defend the independence and professionalism of its journalists from attack, such a scenario is highly unlikely.

In an unspoken way, the Caribbean Service also indirectly supported the sense of region, albeit from afar. That, too, is going to fade, just as the region's own commitment to integration is dying.

The decision to close the BBC Caribbean Service is short-sighted. It will have a long-term cost to the Caribbean's perception of the UK and of itself. The BBC Caribbean Service was a practical daily manifestation of the fact that Britain cared. Its value far exceeded the sums spent bilaterally through Britain's aid budget for the region.

In many respects, the various incarnations of the BBC Caribbean Service reflected the nature of the changing UK relationship with the region. It first started broadcasting to the Caribbean at the start of the Second World War.

In its early days, it was primarily aimed at enabling letters and messages to be broadcast home from West Indian troops serving overseas. Later, it went through other changes, showcasing some of the region's greatest writers and poets before reappearing in the late 1980s as a news and current affairs department providing a mix of programming carried by radio stations throughout the region.

The Caribbean Service's caring and professional staff will disperse; its archives, hopefully, will go to the University of the West Indies so that its unique contemporary record of events will not be lost along with it region-wide daily audience; and history will record the decision as another marker in Britain's diminishing role in the region.

David Jessop is director of the Caribbean Council.david.jessop@caribbean-council.org