Q.

The BBC's domestic services, which are funded by a licence fee paid by UK residents, recently announced the need for more savings, and cut-backs are likely to follow. In contrast, BBC World Service will receive an increase in the government grant by which it is funded - an extra £70 million over the next three years. The majority has been earmarked for new television services in Arabic and Farsi. How will this affect the future of the radio services?

A.

The vast majority of the audiences that use the World Service will be using the radio services for many, many years to come. Even after we've invested this new money in Arabic TV, Farsi TV and increased our online media spend, over 80% of the £250 million budget of the World Service is spent on radio every year.

The fact that we're going to invest new money in new TV services for certain parts of the world should not be interpreted as our giving up on radio. It still remains the core, the bedrock of what we do.

Savings targets have been set by government at 3% a year. If you compare that with other publicly-funded companies in Britain, this is at the lower end of the scale. This is partly because we demonstrated that we have a pretty efficient set-up and we've worked really hard in this area.

We'll do everything we can to protect quality of our radio services and I'm looking very hard at finding ways of making savings which won't infringe directly upon the number of producers in specific areas, the range of programmes on the network, the schedule or, in particular, upon the cornerstone of the World Service - its news and current affairs content.  Our audience research shows that this is what really underpins the brand.

Although television is one of the best ways to reach people in new markets such as the Middle East, in the case of both Arabic and Farsi we're still maintaining a very significant radio service. So we'll actually be enhancing our multimedia proposition for those audiences, not diminishing it. We have to be realistic about how people consume news and get information, and not providing TV services for Arabic and Farsi audiences is like battling for people's attention with one hand tied behind our backs.

Although BBC World Service is funded by the British government, we are - as are all other BBC services - editorially independent of the government. Quite separately from the government's foreign policy issues, there is a demonstrable audience need in the Middle East. The BBC used to provide TV services to the Middle East in the 1990s and people were very disappointed when we were unable to continue with them. Radio, while doing a good job there, cannot do the whole job.

I don't believe there's a crisis of identity between our traditional radio audience and the newer TV- and multimedia-conscious audience. What binds these two groups of people together is a need for reliable, well-presented news and information. Sometimes people will find this through traditional radio and sometimes they'll find it through new multimedia devices - it's a matter of choice.

What ultimately unite these two aspects are the values that run through the services. BBC Arabic TV and BBC Farsi TV will have to uphold the highest standards of editorial judgement and excellence maintained by BBC World Service since 1932. Television is a different medium but there are shared values, ambitions and aspirations.

Nigel Chapman is the Director of BBC World Service.