Director of the BBC World Service Group, Peter Horrocks has announced that he will be leaving the broadcaster in the new year.

Horrocks has worked with the BBC for 33 years across a wide variety of roles.

He stepped into his current role in 2009, and is responsible for World Service English radio, multimedia services in 28 languages, BBC World News TV, BBC.com/news and BBC Monitoring.

Weekly audiences for the BBC’s global news services – BBC World Service, BBC World News and BBC.com –reached a record 265m under Horrocks.

He also oversaw the moving of the World Service from Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) funding into the licence fee and leaving its historic headquarters for the BBC’s New Broadcasting House.

Peter Horrocks said: “Having overseen this recovery and taken the World Service into the new era of licence fee funding, it is time for me to move on to my next challenge.”

Director-General of the BBC, Tony Hall, said: “He leaves us as one of our most respected leaders. He is a force of nature and we will miss him.”

Director of BBC News and Current Affairs, James Harding, said: “Peter Horrocks has opened the BBC to new voices and fresh ideas and he has presided over the extraordinary growth of the BBC’s worldwide audience.”