BBC

The Challenge

The BBC Arabic Service, as part of the wider BBC World Service, plays a critical role in delivering trusted, impartial news and content to audiences across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and beyond. However, in a rapidly changing media landscape — with increasing competition from local and international broadcasters, and shifting audience consumption habits across TV, radio, and digital — the service needed to strengthen its relevance, resonance, and engagement with Arabic-speaking audiences.

The project’s key objectives were:

Increase audience relevance by ensuring BBC Arabic’s programming and content aligned more closely with the interests, needs, and expectations of its audience.
Improve service delivery by understanding how viewers, listeners, and digital users accessed and evaluated the service across platforms.
Bring the service closer to its audiences, fostering a sense of dialogue and connection.
Encourage advocacy and loyalty, ensuring that BBC Arabic continued to be seen as a trusted, compelling source of news and cultural content.

The Solution

Skopos built a bespoke online panel community, designed to give BBC Arabic a continuous and dynamic channel for feedback:

Participant recruitment: Brought together BBC Arabic viewers, radio listeners, and website visitors across the MENA region, with reach extending to Arabic-speaking audiences globally.
Quantitative research: Structured surveys were used to measure satisfaction, content relevance, and service delivery performance across platforms.
Qualitative engagement: Discussion forums and feedback boards enabled deeper conversations, capturing audience perceptions of content tone, coverage priorities, and delivery style.
Content testing: Community members were exposed to new programme formats and storylines to evaluate cut-through and appeal.
Iterative design: The community model allowed for ongoing feedback rather than one-off research, creating a living resource for audience insight.

The Outcome

The programme provided the BBC with clear, actionable insights that directly shaped the evolution of the Arabic Service:

Captured how Arabic-speaking audiences evaluated news and content, highlighting areas of strength and opportunities for greater cultural resonance.
Helped refine content strategy, ensuring programming was both globally credible and locally relevant.
Strengthened the BBC Arabic Service’s ability to react quickly to audience expectations on emerging news stories and cultural themes.
Demonstrated strong evidence of audience demand and engagement, which helped the division secure additional funding for future growth.
Supported the BBC’s broader mission of fostering trust, credibility, and advocacy among Arabic-speaking communities in a highly competitive media environment.

Ultimately, this project brought the BBC Arabic Service closer to its audiences, ensuring that programming was not only trusted, but also felt compelling, relevant, and reflective of the cultural and political contexts in which it was consumed.

BBC

The Challenge

The Solution

The Outcome

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