World Notes BROADCASTING

"We were verging on the pompous," says John Tusa, managing director for the World Service of the British Broadcasting Corp. So, to compete with TV and satellite broadcasts, the BBC has updated its venerable radio World Service with a format a spokesman cautiously calls "a bit more relaxed, a bit less formal." A bit. The 25 million addicts around the globe can still tune in to the World Service's news broadcasts, long noted for the accuracy of their reporting, but the format will be slightly less stuffy. Announcers will address correspondents with more informality, as in "Tony, thanks very much." Colloquialisms are also being sprinkled into the news. The clash in Poland between the government and the banned Solidarity union, for instance, was uncharacteristically called "a bareknuckle fight."

BBC diction standards will not relax. For 56 years the carefully pronounced speech heard on the World Service has been the ultimate model for listeners learning English as a second language. The familiar opener for Radio Newsreel -- a brassy rendition of Imperial Echoes, with its resonance of a colonial past -- is gone and may not be missed. But news programs will still be introduced with a revered sound: the bouncy tune of the Irish song Lilliburlero and the muffled chimes of Big Ben.