The BBC, the world’s biggest public broadcaster, is to cut almost a quarter of its 28 000-strong workforce, in the biggest shake-up in its 82-year history, The Times newspaper in London said on Monday.
The BBC rejected the report as speculative.
The daily said that news gathering and production operations at the broadcaster will bear the brunt of a series of cost-cutting exercises planned from next year by BBC chiefs and ordered by chairperson Michael Grade.
A BBC spokesperson said the 6 000 staff losses quoted in The Times are ”all purely speculative at this point”, adding that four reviews on different aspects of the organisation are due in December.
The shake-up comes as the British government mulls the renewal in 2006 of the BBC’s 10-year royal charter, which enables it to gather a licence fee from all television owners in the country.
Licence fees brought the BBC an income of £2,8-billion in 2003, The Times said.
Relations between Downing Street and the BBC have been strained since a row over Iraq last year.
Former BBC director general Greg Dyke resigned in January after an independent report into the suicide of respected defence ministry weapons expert David Kelly faulted the corporation for lax editorial management.
Kelly had been the source of a BBC radio report in May 2003 that alleged that Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government had ”sexed up” pre-war intelligence on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction.
The Times said on Monday that under the changes, led by director general Mark Thompson, key staff will be moved out of London and relocated to other cities around Britain.
More programme production will also be contracted out and some activities partly privatised, it said. — Sapa-AFP