BBC World Service Television, often abbreviated to WSTV (World Service Television), was the name of two BBC international

satellite television Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna com ...

channels between 1991 and 1995. It was the BBC's first foray into worldwide television broadcasting. In Europe, it was the successor to

BBC TV Europe BBC TV Europe was a BBC subscription-funded television service established in 1987, serving continental Europe, initially Scandinavia. It was available on satellite and cable.

, which it replaced on 11 March 1991. The service was also launched in Asia as a 24-hour news and information service with minor differences, a precursor to

BBC World News BBC World News is an international English-language pay television network, operated under the ''BBC Global News Limited'' division of the BBC, which is a public corporation of the UK government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media an ...

, launched on 14 October 1991. Unlike the

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the British Government through the Foreign Secretary's office. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception a ...

at the time, it was not funded by the British government with a grant-in-aid.''Territoriality in the Globalizing Society: one place or none? : with 5 figures and 8 tables''
Stefan Immerfall, Springer Science & Business Media, 14 May 1998, page 112 Instead, it was funded either by subscription or by commercial advertising, with advertisements that were inserted locally by the cable or satellite providers. In the years that followed, where not broadcast via a particular local provider, the BBC would insert news headlines, trailers for their own programming, and other updates to fill the gaps, these being known as "break fillers".

Availability

Europe

In Europe, BBC WSTV replaced BBC TV Europe on 11 March 1991 as the BBC's subscription-funded entertainment service. Like BBC TV Europe, it was a mix of

BBC1 BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...

and

BBC2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream a ...

. However, in place of BBC TV Europe's near-continuous direct rebroadcast of BBC1 and schedule pattern timed to UK time ( GMT/ BST), it had a schedule pattern more synchronised to

Central European Time Central European Time (CET) is a standard time which is 1 hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The time offset from UTC can be written as UTC+01:00. It is used in most parts of Europe and in a few North African countries. CE ...

and many of its first-run programmes were timeshifted to more suitable times for viewing in CET, as well as showing specially commissioned ''World Service News'' bulletins from Television Centre. The BBC World Service News studio looked like the BBC's domestic news, though with different graphics and an on-screen logo. The station also broadcast its own

Children's BBC BBC Children's and Education is the BBC division responsible for media content for children in the UK. Since the launch of specially dedicated television channels in 2002, the services have been marketed under two brands. CBBC (short for Chi ...

junctions from Presentation Studio A.

Outside Europe

Outside Europe, BBC World Service Television was the name of the 24-hour news, information and current affairs service, launched in Asia on 14 October 1991 as carried by Star TV, and also available from

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

AsiaSat Asia Satellite Telecommunications Holdings Limited, known by its brand name AsiaSat, is a commercial operator of communication spacecraft. AsiaSat, based in Hong Kong, is incorporated in Bermuda. AsiaSat is jointly owned by Chinese state-owned ...

. Competing against

CNN International CNN International (CNNI, simply branded on-air as CNN) is an international television channel that is owned by CNN Global. CNN International carries news-related programming worldwide; it cooperates with sister network CNN's national and inter ...

, it showed current affairs and documentary programming from BBC One and BBC Two in addition to ''BBC World Service News'' with entertainment programs aired on

Star Plus StarPlus is an Indian Hindi language general entertainment pay television channel owned by Disney Star (formerly ''Star India''), a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company India. The network's programming consists of family dramas, comedi ...

. Explaining why the company choose to carry BBC WSTV instead of CNN,

Richard Li Richard Li Tzar-kai is a Hong Kong businessman and philanthropist. The founder and chairman of the private investment group Pacific Century Group (PCG), Li started his career in the 1990s with the founding of STAR TV, a pan-Asian television ...

, who was head of Star TV at the time, cited American bias projected in CNN's coverage of the

Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...

, in an interview with ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''.

News Corporation News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp.), also variously known as News Corporation Limited, was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in New ...

, of

Rupert Murdoch Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...

, began acquiring Star TV in 1993. In March 1994, the BBC and Star TV reached a deal after an out of court settlement, that would gradually drop BBC World Service Television from the satellite broadcaster's offerings. BBC WSTV would be dropped from the channel line-up for the Northeast Asia by mid-April that year, but would be available in the rest of Asia until 31 March 1996.Murdoch's STAR TV to drop BBC
UPI March 22, 1994 BBC World Service Television programming was also carried in Africa on

M-Net M-Net (an abbreviation of Electronic Media Network) is a South African pay television channel established by Naspers in 1986. The channel broadcasts both local and international programming, including general entertainment, children's series, ...

, launched on 15 April 1992, for 11 hours a day. In

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

, its bulletins were carried on

CBC Newsworld CBC News Network (formerly CBC Newsworld) is a Canadian English-language specialty news channel owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). It broadcasts into over 10 million homes in Canada. As Canada's first all-news channel, it is th ...

several times a day.''BBC Worldwide'' The BBC World Service Magazine
Issues 9-14, November 1993

Presentation

The channel from 1991 until c.1994 used the presentation device of a rotating world: the

Computer Originated World The Computer Originated World (COW) was the method of creating the BBC1 symbol that was used between 18 February 1985 and 16 February 1991. It was later used by the international, commercial television service BBC World Service Television fro ...

, which had previously been used on BBC One between 1985 and 1991. The world symbol remained the same, but the legend at the bottom was altered to a BBC logo with an italic "World Service" beneath. Promotional style and static programme captions mirrored that of BBC1 and 2 at the time and featured the globe symbol above a small BBC logo in the top left corner of promotions and on captions. The sidebar of captions featured a vague wispy line style, similar to that used by WSTV bulletins. YouTube video of BBC WSTV continuity including idents, captions and promotions. The channel also used a break bumper featuring the globe, and a promo bumper featuring the COW globe split into lines to the side and bottom. Contains images and video clips of News, Weather and break and promo bumpers. Around the time of the relaunch, BBC WSTV adopted a variation of the flag look later to be used by

BBC World BBC World News is an International broadcasting, international English-language pay television network, operated under the ''BBC Global News Limited'' division of the BBC, which is a State-owned enterprise, public corporation of the Governme ...

, which only featured a BBC logo. Contains news clips from the channel, and an ident used on BBC WSTV. Contains images and previously video of BBC WSTV continuity. The channel had a permanent DOG of the BBC logo in the top right corner of the screen.

Rebranding and reorganisation

On Thursday, 26 January 1995 at 19:00 GMT, BBC World Service Television was split into two new channels at

BBC Television Centre Television Centre (TVC) is a building complex in White City, West London, that was the headquarters of BBC Television between 1960 and 2013. After a refurbishment, the complex reopened in 2017 with three studios in use for TV production, opera ...

White City White City may refer to: Places Australia * White City, Perth, an amusement park on the Perth foreshore * White City railway station, a former railway station * White City Stadium (Sydney), a tennis centre in Sydney * White City FC, a football c ...

: *

(since renamed

): 24-hour English free-to-air terrestrial international news channel: news bulletins, information, business and financial news magazines and current affairs programmes, officially launched on Monday 16 January 1995 at 19:00 GMT. *

BBC Prime BBC Prime was the BBC's general entertainment TV channel in Europe, Middle East, Africa, South Asia and Asia Pacific from 30 January 1995 until 11 November 2009, when it was replaced by BBC Entertainment. Launch BBC Prime was launched at 19: ...

(since replaced by BBC Entertainment): 24-hour English cable lifestyle, variety and entertainment channel: variety, culture, leisure, lifestyle, art and light entertainment programmes, officially launched on Monday 30 January 1995 at 19:00 GMT. Contains video of pre-launch caption, and of the simultaneous launch of BBC World and BBC Prime.

References

External links

BBC World Service Television idents
at Transdiffusion

at TV World - Videos are no longer available

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bbc World Service Television World Service International BBC television channels Television channels and stations established in 1991 Television channels and stations disestablished in 1995 1991 establishments in the United Kingdom 1995 disestablishments in the United Kingdom