BBC World News (DStv 400 / StarSat 256) is turning 25 years old this month and is marking its silver anniversary with a special on-screen look.
While major questions are being asked internally at the BBC over the future of BBC World News as a 24-hour TV news channel as part of a much broader and bigger radical restructuring of the British public broadcaster, the channel that started with just 12 journalists now has thousands of journalists, based in over 100 cities and studios across the world.
The channel originally launched with a half hour news bulletin known as World Service Television (WSTV) on 11 March 1991 when it replaced BBC TV Europe. From there the channel has grown to be available in 433 million TV households across the world.
In 1992 the channel became available in Africa for the first time. In 1995 WSTV relaunched as BBC World, before changing to BBC World News in 2008.
In 2013 BBC World News moved to its new newsroom alongside the World Service's radio broadcasts in 29 languages and the BBC's domestic news service in London. The building houses 3 000 journalists, production and operational staff from where the United Kingdom and global services are co-ordinated from one location.
"The world has changed dramatically for all of us in the past 25 years and so has the way we get news from the field to our viewers," says Jim Egan, CEO of BBC Global News Ltd.
"Our commitment to providing accurate, impartial news of the highest quality to international audiences is unwavering. We're proud that, in a world of great uncertainty and in a news industry which is every bit as volatile, BBC World News continues to grow and is the most trusted source of global television news available anywhere".
BBC World News says it now has 85 million viewers per week.
