From a BBC news release on bbc.co.uk headlined “BBC on track to reach half a billion people globally ahead of its centenary in 2022”:

The BBC has achieved the highest ever global audience, according to the Global Audience Measure (GAM) published today, which records the total weekly number of adults accessing the BBC around the world.

In 2020/21, the BBC achieved record figures with an average audience of 489 million* adults every week, an increase of over twenty million from the previous year.