Entertainment

BBC Chief Warns TV and Radio Services Could Close in £500m Cuts

Putri ArdhanaPublished 2w ago3 min readBased on 7 sources
BBC Chief Warns TV and Radio Services Could Close in £500m Cuts
Photo by Simon Walker / No 10 Downing Street / OGL 3

BBC Director-General Matt Brittin has warned that TV and radio services could shut as the BBC works to save £500 million ($662M).

He said the savings drive "may well mean" closures. He spoke in an interview for Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, the BBC's weekly politics programme, due to air over the weekend, as reported by Deadline on 25 September. Brittin said the BBC "wouldn't guarantee any programme or any channel will exist forever" given its tight finances.

No service is safe. Brittin pointed to services drawing about 100,000 viewers on traditional broadcast compared with 500,000 viewers on iPlayer, the BBC's streaming service. That gap, he said, is part of the argument for moving some services fully to on-demand, meaning they would be available only online and not on scheduled TV or radio.

The maths is tight. About 94% of the UK population use the BBC each month, but fewer than 80% pay the £180 annual licence fee, the yearly household charge that funds the BBC. The £500 million target, to be delivered over the next three years, sits on top of an earlier £1.5 billion savings goal.

The first tranche is already moving. In June, the BBC set out 550 job cuts as the opening step in the plan, aimed at delivering about £160 million of the £500 million total, according to BBC News. Up to 2,000 jobs are at risk under the wider strategy. About 550 of the planned 1,800 to 2,000 cuts are expected to fall on BBC News.

Those early changes hit programmes directly. Radio 4's The World Tonight is to be axed. The production teams behind Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg and Newsnight, the late-night news programme, will be merged, as reported by The Guardian. Breakfast on BBC One will no longer air on Sunday mornings from September.

Staff relations add further strain. Unions have rejected two BBC pay offers, lifting the risk of industrial action. For the crews, production teams and newsrooms involved, the cuts decide not just schedules but jobs and whether some strands continue at all.

For viewers, this means familiar slots could disappear or shift online. No closure has been decided. But the head of the BBC has now put it on the table.

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