BBC to Launch Services in 11 More Languages including Yoruba and Pidgin

The BBC World Service will launch 11 new language services as part of its biggest expansion "since the 1940s", the corporation has announced.

The new languages will be Yoruba, Afaan Oromo, Amharic, Gujarati, Igbo, Korean, Marathi, Pidgin, Punjabi, Telugu and Tigrinya.

The first new services are expected to launch in 2017.

BBC World Service on Wednesday announced its biggest expansion since the 1940s, including the largest outside the United Kingdom.

The announcement follows a funding boost of £289 million until 2019-20 for the World Service from the British government. The new services are scheduled to be launched in 2017, according to a BBC statement.  The BBC Hindi service has been running since May 1940.

BBC director-general Tony Hall said: “As we move towards our centenary, my vision is of a confident, outward-looking BBC which brings the best of our independent, impartial journalism and world-class entertainment to half a billion people around the world. Today is a key step towards that aim.”

Francesca Unsworth, BBC World Service director, said the announcement was about transforming the service by investing for the future.  “We must follow our audience, who consume the news in changing ways; an increasing number of people are watching the World Service on TV, and many services are now digital-only,” she said.

 BBC World Service currently broadcasts in 29 languages to 246 million people around the world weekly.