UNITED KINGDOM - BBC cuts services

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC cuts services
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has released its March 2010 Strategy Review, which proposes cuts to website services and TV channels and sets targets of being more “distinctive and ambitious” in pursuing its Public Service mission.
   Director-General of the BBC, Mark Thompson said the proposal sought to achieve cost savings of £600 million (A$1 billion).
   The Strategy includes plans to shutdown BBC6 Music and the BBC Asian Network, halve the size of the BBC’s website, shed a quarter of website staff and slash the online budget by 25 per cent.
   “Our analysis is based on three years of work that have made clear to us the views the public hold about how the BBC could improve and the areas of BBC activity that most concern the market,” Mr Thompson said.
   “From that understanding, we have formed the view that the BBC can do more to sharpen its focus on its core Public Service mission; to stop doing some things that it doesn’t need to do, to improve the value for money it provides; and to reconsider how it can best meet the requirement that it offers something to all parts of the audience.”
   The BBC is also expected to close BBC Switch and BBC Blast which are online, radio and TV services aimed at teenagers.
   It cited the lead role played by Channel 4 and other broadcasters in serving the teenage audience as its reason for pulling the plug.
   General Secretary of the National Union of Journalists, Jeremy Dear said he would back a union campaign opposing the cuts as they would cost jobs and threaten “huge amounts” of “valuable” Public Service output.
   Mr Dear said the changes put the BBC’s management on a “collision course” with staff, unions and the public.
   “BBC management’s strategy of desperate, hopeful, self-sacrifice is fundamentally flawed,” he said.
   “Far from convincing an incoming Government or commercial rivals that the BBC should now be left well alone, their self-harming approach will only encourage commercial media operations to demand more cuts.
   “We cannot stand by and watch staff and outstanding public service content sacrificed,” Mr Dear said.

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