The service is a venture bringing together Turner Broadcasting’s CNN International and the Philippines conglomerate Nine Media Corporation. Broadcasting predominantly in English but with localized content and an accompanying website, it takes over the frequencies occupied by Nine’s 9TV.

The Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL Inc) should continue its operation in accordance with all journalistic standards, the US Ambassador to Azerbaijan Robert Cekuta told reporters on Mar.14.

In a move that could plunge the corporation into confrontation with the North Korean dictator, the World Service is examining how to set up a special news channel that will get around Pyongyang’s ban on foreign media broadcasts.

For all the money thrown at Clarkson and his co-hosts, the enormous international success of the show had made it extremely profitable for the public-service broadcaster. And more importantly, Top Gear's global audience also provided something intangible: Soft power.

The masked gunmen seen in Crimea, Donetsk and Lugansk came only after the population had been conditioned, through propaganda and other soft power tools, to see Mr. Putin’s Russia as a saviour from the government under which they’d been living.

The board, which oversees United States government-supported international news media like Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, is scheduled to meet on Friday to begin looking for a successor to Mr. Lack.

Australia's highest court on Wednesday cleared the way for a radio station to face penalties over a 2012 prank call to a London hospital that was caring for the Duchess of Cambridge. A nurse who transferred the call committed suicide after the broadcast.

“Public diplomacy through this journalistic mission is a critically important tool in America’s foreign policy toolbox,” said former BBG member Michael Meehan, “And not to fix the structural problems now and losing a top pro like Andy would be a big loss to the mission.’