BBC Monitoring, based at Caversham near Reading, provides a service of international news and comment, gathered from the mass media around the world. With additional funding of £5 million over the three years 2001-2004, it is extending its ability to deliver accurate news and comment. Coverage is being improved in parts of the world where customer interest is growing in response to fast-changing events and where media access is difficult. Digital and multimedia projects have high priority and the internet is transforming the collection and delivery of information.
 
Monitoring is broadening its customer base among core users – government departments and the BBC – and other organisations. ‘Our material gives policymakers, analysts, broadcasters and other customers an authoritative and representative picture of a rapidly shifting world, where media comment is often highly relevant,’ says Monitoring director Andrew Hills. ‘As it becomes harder to predict where the next political or economic crisis is going to take place, our ability to respond to events has to be flexible.’
 
In Africa, for example, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe have loomed large on the year's agenda alongside the continuing problems in Congo, Ethiopia and Eritrea. Monitoring has improved its ability to respond to such events, often involving British interests, while maintaining coverage in established high priority areas such as the former Soviet Union, Iran, and the Balkans.
 
‘Our investment in digital technology is transforming the way we handle material throughout our operations,’ notes Andrew Hills. ‘Over the next few years, the aim is to offer increasingly versatile access to TV pictures and audio actuality in addition to text material.’
 
There is progressively less emphasis on hard copy. This year Monitoring finally replaced the Summary of World Broadcasts, published since 1939, with soft copy successors such as Monitoring Select, an improved electronic digest.
 
The internet is now a major source of information in its own right, and has already transformed the way material is collected and delivered. Monitoring staff regularly track hundreds of internet sources and increasingly access radio and newspaper sites online.
 
‘Through BBC Online, we are delivering material to a wide range of BBC users,’ comments Andrew Hills. ‘This year we introduced country profiles which provide background information to stories on the BBC News website, drawing upon our extensive sources of reference material.’