BBC World Service to launch new offer in Polish

As we face a storm of disinformation and ever-growing attacks on media freedom, democracy and regional security, BBC News Polska is a major step towards serving more audiences around the world with content they can trust.

— Global Director and Deputy CEO, BBC News, Jonathan Munro

BBC World Service is expanding its trusted news offer with the launch of a pilot Polish-language news website, BBC News Polska – bbc.com/polska, and its content on social channels.

Going live from Tuesday 24 June 2025, the website bbc.com/polska will deliver independent and impartial news in text and video for Polish-speaking audiences.

The new language offer will help counter a wave of disinformation in the region and provide news and analysis on areas audiences are seeking information on, including the ongoing wars and conflicts, health, climate change, and the cost of living. BBC News Polska content will be available via its social-media channels on Facebook and Instagram.

The pilot language initiative will come from existing budgets and will be reviewed throughout its first year of operation. The BBC World Service’s ability to respond to changing audience demands, launch further pilots and adapt to global challenges relies on the need for a long-term sustainable funding model.

BBC News Polska will be the first new language offer from the BBC World Service produced with the help of AI translation technology.

BBC News Polska will work innovatively to harness existing translation and transcription tools to bring the best of the BBC’s journalism to new audiences. The translation of BBC reporting will always have human editorial oversight and, where used, will be clearly labelled.

The curated content will complement regional angles and analysis produced by the team of Polish-speaking journalists. The platforms will also host content from BBC presenters Kasia Madera and Tomasz Schafernaker.

The launch of BBC News Polska sees the BBC World Service working in a new way with a small, efficient team delivering both the AI-assisted translation of curated BBC reporting and original journalism.

BBC News Polska will operate as a pilot. The BBC World Service has bold plans to pilot more non-English-language content where there is a demand for independent, impartial news as press freedom reduces globally and disinformation is rife.

Global Director and Deputy CEO, BBC News, Jonathan Munro, says: “Today, as we face a storm of disinformation and ever-growing attacks on media freedom, democracy and regional security, BBC News Polska is a major step towards serving more audiences around the world with content they can trust.

“This is part of a strategy that would see the BBC’s global reach grow and advance the case for democratic values. But to do this, the BBC World Service would need a long-term sustainable funding arrangement to build on these foundations and to secure our global public service journalism for the future.”

Deputy Global Director, BBC News, Fiona Crack, adds: “Launching BBC News Polska, we are bringing together the most effective practices of working responsibly and innovatively with AI to reach Polish-speakers with the best of the BBC’s global and regional journalism. Following successful trials and advances in translation services, we are able to launch a new offer alongside original stories and fresh angles from our excellent Polish-speaking team. We look forward to building an audience for whom this content will serve as a welcome and required source of trusted news and information.”

The BBC is the most recognised international news brand in Poland (source: BBC Impact and Influence 2025 study), reaching around 5.1m people every week in the country – around a fifth of the country’s adult population – with the BBC News TV channel, the BBC Studios global digital news platform BBC.com, as well as BBC World Service’s content in English and other languages.

BBC News Polska is the BBC’s first new language offer from the BBC since BBC News Serbian was announced in March 2017.

Notes

The BBC has previously announced our intention to translate existing BBC News content into languages to make it available to a wider audience as noted here: An update on the BBC’s plans for Generative AI (Gen AI) and how we plan to use AI tools responsibly

About BBC World Service

BBC World Service delivers news and current affairs around the world in 42 language services including English across a mix of video, audio, and online output. Mainly through the BBC World Service, the BBC reaches a weekly audience of 450m and is ranked first by global audiences for trust, reliability, and independence amongst international news providers.

BBC Global Impact and Influence Research

Recent research revealed that the BBC is unmatched internationally in driving favourable impressions of the UK and that the BBC is the country’s most recognised cultural export internationally with 76% of influential audiences around the world having heard of BBC News – higher than any other British cultural export including British sports, films and universities. You can read the full research: Global Influence and Impact Research