The British Broadcasting Corporation, the world’s biggest public broadcaster, announced plans on Monday to cut 3 780 jobs so as to save hundreds of millions of pounds in what it termed its ”toughest period” in memory.
The BBC, which employs more than 27 000 people in Britain and around the world, said it would slash further 2 050 posts in the wake of 1 730 other job losses confirmed earlier this month.
The figure amounts to 880 more cuts than the 2 900 the BBC announced when it first disclosed a massive reorganisation and modernisation overhaul in December.
Union officials said it was the ”worst day” in the BBC’s 83-year history and warned of industrial unrest, while BBC director Mark Thompson told staff the corporation was ”going through the toughest period any of us can remember”.
”It’s a difficult and painful process but necessary,” said Thompson, a 20-year BBC veteran who returned as director general in June after running independent terrestrial broadcaster Channel Four television.
The cuts combined would bring total cost savings of 355-million pounds a year to reinvest in programmes, the BBC said, 35-million pounds more than first targeted last December.
Among redundancies announced on Monday were 420 posts in the news division, 66 in sport, 150 in drama, entertainment and children’s programmes, 735 in the regions, 58 in new media and 424 in factual and learning.
”This is all money we plan to spend on programmes and content, both to improve the services we deliver to audiences right now and to build strong BBC services in the future,” Thompson said in an internal memo.
”We want all divisions to figure out ways of achieving these savings through genuine improvements rather than crude cuts,” he said.
”We need to free up money to start investing in our digital future, to end our current charter in December 2006 on budget and to show we are serious about providing value for money,” Thompson said.
The BBC — which draws most of its annual revenue, 2,8-billion pounds, from a yearly licence fee of 121 pounds levied on all British homes with a television set — suffered a deficit of 249-million pounds in the fiscal year 2003-2004.
In March, the government announced that the licence fee will remain in place until 2016, the end of the BBC’s next 10-year charter, the legal basis under which it operates.
But after that, the government will look at different methods of funding the BBC, founded in 1922, perhaps including subscription.
Following the redundancies, which amount to almost 20% of the BBC’s British workforce, news departments will need to do certain things differently and in many areas will have less money to spend, said the internal memo.
Journalists who will be leaving because of the cuts were told they had done nothing wrong.
”All of you have contributed to our success over the years. However, in a rapidly moving media industry, change is inevitable though none of us underestimate how painful it can be,” the memo said.
Union leaders will meet later this week to decide how to respond to the cuts, but have already warned they will ballot staff on industrial action if there are any compulsory redundancies.
Luke Crawley, an official with broadcasting workers’ union Bectu, said he was shocked by the announcement.
”This is the worst day in the BBC’s history,” he said. ”I can’t see how the BBC will deliver all Thompson’s promises about new services after ditching so many staff, and life for those who survive is going to be miserable. – Sapa-AFP