All Good Things: BBC Arabic Takes a Hit

Last week, I learned that earlier this year, the BBC World Service discontinued broadcasts in ten foreign languages. Among these was the BBC's Arabic Service, which had been broadcasting to the Arab world for more than eighty-five years. For me, this marks not only the end of one of the more consistent and reliable Arabic audio streams, but also the end of the BBC Xtra podcast.

al Jazeera: BBC Arabic radio goes off air after 85 years

Middle East Economy: Hundreds of jobs lost following BBC Arabic radio transmisson stoppage

Arab News: End of an Era: BBC Arabic Radio goes off air after 85 years

Zawya: BBC's Arabic radio service bids farewell to the world after 85 years of broadcasting

Daily Mail: BBC World Service is to cut 382 jobs and will AXE Arabic and Persian radio stations under plan to make more of its broadcasts 'digital only'

For the uninitiated, there are actually two BBC entities that sort of coexist like conjoined twins in the same ecosystem. The domestic British Broadcasting Corporation, often affectionately referred to as "Auntie Beeb," provides domestic programming to the British audience (though some of those program(me)s are subsequently proliferated to other countries on outlets such as BBC America). "Auntie Beeb" is funded by the infamous licensing fee, by which any Brit who owns a television (and maybe a radio?) pays a fee for it, which goes to support the BBC, public broadcasting style. The other twin is funded by the British Foreign Office, and focuses on the production of content aimed at informing and engaging an international audience.

The Arabic service celebrated its eightieth anniversary in 2018, and the History Extra podcast - a production of the BBC domestic service's BBC History magazine - used the occasion to interview one of the BBC's executives, Wissam El Sayegh. Five years later, and even under these unfortunate circumstances, it's still worth the listen.

I experienced the BBC's Arabic Service in three contexts. The first was in either late 2007 or early 2008, when I discovered the BBC Xtra podcast. That was not too terribly long after its 2005 debut. It's since jumped around a bit, but you can catch the last few episodes here, at least for a limited time. I retain a cache of dozens of episodes of Xtra from the period ranging from around 2007 to around 2013, and a handful of later episodes. I had started studying Arabic in mid-2005, with very few resources easily available to me, and Xtra was great because it's consistent format helped me to learn words and build an understanding based on what I knew was going on. I paired Xtra listening sessions with lessons from ArabicPod.

The second incarnation, which I would have experienced intermittently starting around the same time, was the live Internet stream of the BBC's actual Arabic Service, which would broadcast the Xtra programs, but also offered other programs and live news coverage. Same idea: listen, identify different segments, and learn words and phrases. The live stream was the Internet-accessible version of the BBC's aforementioned long standing Arabic radio service, which broadcast across the Arab world. During my own stint living in Kuwait, when I drove alone, I'd regularly tune the actual, bona fide radio program in on 90.1 FM - though if I'm being honest, I was usually more likely to tune in the BBC World Service's English programs on 100.1 FM.

I had noticed a couple of months ago that my previously successful efforts to access the BBC Arabic Service via the Radio Garden app had begun to fail. As stations occasionally disappear and reappear, I didn't pay it much mind, but then I decided to do some Googling, and discovered the sad news: that not only had the BBC shut its Arabic service down, I'd missed the whole thing. I managed to download the crew's farewell special. Even though my Arabic was never strong, and has deteriorated significantly since I left Kuwait more than a decade ago, I was able to get the gist of the various conversations. It was a bittersweet listen.

The BBC's official position is that this was a difficult decision to make, that it was driven by the restrictive budgetary environment in the United Kingdom following Brexit, and that their goal is to focus on digital content. So, maybe there's room to hope that some incarnation of the BBC's Arabic radio content may return at some point. In the meantime, I'll pat myself on the back for saving as many episodes as I did, and continue to enjoy those episodes when I resume my Arabic studies... Soon, hopefully.