London — The BBC has announced a series of significant changes to its international news portfolio, including bringing its commercially-funded TV and digital news operations together for the first time.

The changes include multimedia journalists working on broadcast and digital output alongside each other in “the world’s newsroom”, broadcasting in 27 different languages; state-of-the-art new studios for BBC World News going LIVE this autumn; and the successful roll-out of HD transmission to Asia-Pacific. Meanwhile, BBC’s news website continues the roll out of its “responsive design”, which optimises the BBC site for smartphones and feature phones.

Jim Egan has been appointed as the Chief Operating Officer of the newly created BBC Global News Ltd, which will merge the BBC’s commercially-funded bbc.com/news and BBC World News services, previously operated as separate businesses. BBC Global News Ltd will also oversee the weather and sport areas of bbc.com. Egan will run this business alongside Richard Porter, Controller of English for BBC Global News, who takes editorial responsibility.

Egan said the aim of the changes was to unlock new multimedia opportunities by bringing the BBC’s expertise in digital, social media and TV together in one place and running the operation as a single entity focusing on audiences, not platforms.