RESTRICTED
6. The next Services to be reviewed in detail were the Central European Service, (Polish, Hungarian, Czech/Slovak and Finnish) in May, English by Radio and Television in September, the African Service (Hausa, Somali, Swahili, Portuguese and World Service African Alternative) in December and the Arabic Service in February 1986.
Possible Changes to the Prescription
7.
Mr Barrington referred to the agreement at the last Prescription Committee meeting that proposals for new Korean and Khmer Services should be examined when the new Hong Kong relay station (due to become operational in 1987/88) was nearing completion. The BBC had subsequently said, because
there was a lead in time of about 18 months for any new
Service, decisions needed to be taken in 1986. He also referred to the proposal at the December 1984 Prescription Committee meeting that an Amharic Service should be
reconsidered in 1986. He asked for views on these Services
and, in the context of Hong Kong, the possibility of increasing Mandarin and Cantonese to make use of the extra resources available to the BBC from their windfall savings (see paragraph 3).
8. Dr Wilson said there was no strong case for Khmer based
on the evidence of potential audience and its access to short wave radios. On Korean, although the Secretary of
State had expressed reservations about the merits of a new Korean Service in the context of the Planning Staff paper on
The Two Koreas, Dr Wilson considered the case a reasonably
good one, particularly in the context of making best use of
the new facilities being built in Hong Kong.
This was
generally agreed. In Dr Wilson's view an increase in
Mandarin was of paramount importance once audibility was
improved and it was right that the increase should
concentrate on Mandarin rather than Cantonese. After
discussion it was agreed, to recommend to Ministers that
when the Hong Kong relay was built and subject to the BBC
being able to absorb the costs, the BBC should plan to
RESTRICTED