Lord Patten has said his love of the BBC World Service made protecting it a "priority" - particularly the "core" Arabic, Somali and Hindi services.
The new BBC Trust chairman told the Sunday Telegraph he would fight for it as a 20% budget cut across the corporation takes effect this year.
The paper claimed he signalled in the interview that digital TV channels BBC3 or BBC4 may be axed to help secure it.
The BBC Trust denied this and said nothing had been decided.
The last Governor of Hong Kong told the paper:
"If you want to know how good the BBC is, just spend time somewhere else.***
more:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13741210Nice that he didn't embarass his friends by identifying "somewhere else" by name. ;)