BBC World News is an international English-language pay television network, operated under the BBC Global News Limited division of the BBC, which is a public corporation of the UK government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. According to its corporate PR, the combined seven channels of the Global News operations have the largest audience market share among all of its rivals, with an estimated 99 million viewers weekly in 2016/2017, part of the estimated 121 million weekly audience of all its operations. Launched on 11 March 1991 as BBC World Service Television outside Europe, its name was changed to BBC World on 16 January 1995 and to BBC World News on 21 April 2008. It broadcasts news bulletins, documentaries, lifestyle programmes and interview shows. Unlike the BBC's domestic channels, it is owned and operated by BBC Global News Ltd, part of the BBC's commercial group of companies, and is funded by subscription and advertising revenues, not by the United Kingdom television licence. The channel is not broadcast in the UK, though BBC World News reports and programming are also used by the BBC News channel. It is distinct from the BBC Studios operations. The linear service is aimed at the overseas market, in a similar manner to RT, Al Jazeera, and France 24. In July 2022, the BBC made the decision to merge both BBC News (for UK audiences) and BBC World News (for international audiences) as one news network, under the name BBC News. The channel is set to be launched in April 2023 and will include news from both the UK and around the world. History The channel originally started as BBC World Service Television and was a commercial operation. The British government refused to fund the new television service using grant-in-aid. (BBC World Service radio was funded by a grant-in-aid from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office until 2014.) The channel started broadcasting on 11 March 1991, after two weeks of real-time pilots, initially as a half-hour bulletin once a day at 19:00 GMT. On Thursday, 26 January 1995 at 19:00 GMT, BBC World Service Television was split into two services: BBC World started broadcasting on Monday, 16 January 1995 at 19:00 GMT and became a 24-hour English free-to-air international news channel. BBC Prime started broadcasting on Monday, 30 January 1995 at 19:00 GMT and became the BBC's light entertainment channel, later renamed BBC Entertainment. BBC