BBC has a cost-cut plan to overcome identity crisis

Broadcaster under attack over possible job losses, strategy

LONDON: The head of the BBC will present plans on Wednesday to plug a huge budget shortfall as he faces an angry backlash over hundreds of likely job losses and questions over the broadcaster’s direction.

Director-general Mark Thompson, when he appears before governing body the BBC Trust, will detail a strategy to fill a £2 billion gap.

The shortfall was caused in January when the BBC received a lower than expected licence fee settlement from the government for the next six years.

The BBC reported that up to 2,800 jobs, many in news and factual programming, could be axed — around 12% of the workforce.

The situation underlines a fundamental identity crisis facing the BBC as it struggles to redefine itself in the digital, multimedia age and grapples to rebuild viewers’ trust after a string of recent scandals.

“The circle that it has to square is to keep the BBC being a relevant part of British cultural life while at the same time implementing the cuts that will see this licence fee settlement through,” Steven Barnett, a professor at Westminster University in London said. “It doesn’t really have a choice, to be fair.”

The BBC has launched a range of digital channels for niche audiences in recent years and on Wednesday, the town of Whitehaven, north-west England, became Britain’s first to switch over from an analogue signal to a digital one.

The BBC in July unveiled iPlayer, a television on-demand service which allows viewers to watch programmes online up to a week after transmission.

But some senior presenters including John Humphrys, anchorman of flagship
radio current affairs programme “Today”, have said that, in the face of tight funding, it should cut digital channels, not core programming like news.