Two African countries - Nigeria and Tanzania - are included in the top 10 list of biggest BBC News user markets, while the BBC says massive growth it is international audience is largely being driven by new TV news bulletins in languages other than English.
According to the BBC's latest BBC Global Audience Measure (GAM) that tracks the combined reach of its international content in both news and entertainment fare for the year 2015/2016, the BBC's weekly global audience has increased by a staggering 38 million people (13%) to 320 million.
For the second year in a row, TV (162 million) is a bigger platform than radio (147 million) for the BBC's international news services, which means that the BBC World News (DStv 400 / StarSat 256) channel is globally luring more people than the BBC World Service radio channel.
In what makes an interesting sidenote for the struggling South African public broadcaster and its English only SABC News (DStv 404) channel produced and packaged for MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform in Africa, the BBC says the strong growth in its reach is largely driven by new TV news bulletins broadcast in languages other than English.
"These are fantastic results which show the BBC going from strength to strength around the world and demonstrate the global appetite for accurate, impartial news," says Francesca Unsworth, director of the BBC World Service Group in a statement.
"BBC Worldwide continues to fuel international audiences’ appetite for premium content and in the second year of the Global Audience Measure, we've reached 36.4 million people per week across our owned and operated TV and digital platforms," says Tim Davie, the director, Global and CEO of BBC Worldwide.
Two African countries - Nigeria and Tanzania - show up in the BBC's top 10 markets in 2nd and 7th place for the BBC's international news service.
The top 10 countries are the United States (35 million); Nigeria (35 million); India (23 million); Pakistan (13 million); Iran (12 million); Egypt (11 million); Tanzania (10 million); Brazil (8 million); Afghanistan (7 million) and Bangladesh (6 million).
