BBC WEEKLY AUDIENCE IN AFRICA RISES TO A RECORD 111 MILLION

The BBC now reaches 111 million people across all media platforms in Africa via the BBC World Service, the BBC World News TV channel and bbc.com as well as the international development charity BBC Media Action. The BBC provides content in Arabic, English, French, Hausa, Kinyarwanda/Kirundi, Somali and Swahili across the continent and to diaspora audiences around the world. African audiences make up the largest share of the BBC’s global audience for its news services which currently reaches 320 million people.

The dedicated BBC Africa hub, which delivers content for sub-Saharan Africa and diaspora audiences, brings news and features in inventive, accessible ways such as via the daily Africa live page and bbcafrica.com as well as regular TV and radio bulletins and programmes. In addition the BBC reaches a new online audience via many social media outlets and mobile platforms, creating clickable and shareable content delivered by its reporters across Africa. These include Twitter, Facebook, Google +, Instagram, Soundcloud and YouTube.

Tim Pemberton, BBC Africa Executive Editor says: “We are committed to Africa and the African audience and are proud of the array of talented broadcasters that we have working for BBC Africa. We are dedicated to the impartiality that makes us stand out from other broadcasters and it is wonderful to see the audience responding to this. The continent has a new, young, switched on generation and the BBC will continue to be at the heart of new media and digital innovation.”

There have been notable increases in audience numbers for the BBC’s African language services in the past year.  The biggest has been for BBC Hausa which now reaches a weekly audience of 23.3 million - an increase of 5.2 million from last year.

The new BBC’s Global Audience Measure of two African countries also show impressive new figures. In Uganda, 1 in 5adults (15 and older) consume BBC content each week - this is an 11% rise in the percentage of the population reached by the BBC on a weekly basis. In Sierra Leone, the BBC World Service Group reaches 65% of the population.

2016 global weekly audience figures for the BBC Africa hub on all platforms:

BBC Afrique – 14.8 million

BBC Great Lakes (Kinyarwanda/Kirundi) – 3.2 million

BBC Hausa – 23.3 million

BBC Somali – 3.6 million

BBC Swahili – 17.2 million