(Brittin) said that across the News, Nations and Content divisions, savings of £160m will be delivered by the end of the financial year, including staff and non-staff costs, and a net reduction of 550 roles as part of the previously announced 2,000 jobs to go over the next three years.
The broadcaster also plans to “close some programmes” with commissioning spend across Content, News and Nations reduced by a further £80m in 2027/28 and a review of its portfolio of linear channels and radio networks promised “as audiences move online.”
On Radio 4, we will close these programmes during the next year: The World Tonight, the Midnight News, Money Box Live, AntiSocial, The Law Show and Crossing Continents. From April, weeknight audiences at 2200 will hear a domestic bulletin followed by a simulcast of our World Service programme, Newshour, running in a new time slot. This will cover the global news agenda for both the World Service and Radio 4 audiences, but also continue to feature major UK news stories.
On the BBC World Service,The Inquiry, The Conversation and The Fifth Floor will also close by the end of the year.
On BBC One, we will stop making the Sunday morning edition of BBC Breakfast from September this year. We will simulcast the BBC News Channel instead.
Also from this September we are moving Friday’s edition of Newsnight to a peak-time slot on BBC Two, building on the success of its refreshed format.
5 Live Weekend Breakfast will become a two-hour programme from April.
No more Sunday Breakfast. That is a shocker. (Though saying that, years ago before it moved to Manchester, weekend breakfast was always a glorified News 24 simulcast. So perhaps in some ways we’re going full circle.)
Absolutely brutal cuts in radio, though. I feel for anyone working in that side of the BBC (well, everyone, but particularly the radio peeps).
This could be a positive, though:
We will build further on the News Channel’s audience growth outside the UK by tailoring its agenda more to an international focus. It will of course continue to reflect UK stories which are of interest to the rest of the world. These changes will allow us to pursue opportunities to raise more revenue from the News Channel’s global footprint.
So hopefully it’ll the end of the weird UK/world mishmash the news channel currently is, and back to something much more like the old BBC World News.
That is actually what they did for many, many years. The NC (or News 24, as it used to be called) carried Breakfast every morning for a LONG time. But now that and BBC World have merged, it probably makes more sense to do the opposite. Tbh I think a lot of it is to do with staffing. The Sunday show was always kind of odd because it was outside the jurisdiction of the main teams, who do Monday to Saturday. In that sense I suppose it’s somewhat sensible to axe the Sunday show and just carry BBC World bulletins instead.
A mix of domestic UK and world stories isn’t the problem. What has made the BBC News channel unwatchable is the infuriating use of always on graphics/‘pushbacks’, endless interviews instead of packaged reports, dull/meaningless special branded shows, boring studio presentation and an over reliance on Washington output and weird decisions to move Singapore away from the obvious Australiasian breakfast slot. Singapore should be doing much more, including an evening Asian prime-time bulletin, given how poorly CNN and AJE cover the region.
BBC Breakfast is pretty fluffy too - worse than ABC NB.
They did! For about 25 years. And now it’s being cut to six days a week. So what does that tell us?
Btw the two teams do 3 days each (so Mon-Weds and Thur-Sat) so Sundays have always been a bit of a free for all (at least in front of the camera). I suppose that’s why they’re cutting the Sunday show…
It isn’t, but I think the channel at times spends too much time covering UK stories that aren’t always relevant to global viewers. I think it’s better than it was when the two channels first merged, though.
Difficult to disagree with any of this.
The idea behind the pushbacks was because (certainly in the UK) the news channel is shown in a lot of public places (banks, bars, gyms, etc), often without sound. Sky UK introduced them as well (because Sky loves to copy the BBC) but Sky’s pushbacks do at least look slightly better.
When the merger first happened, the endless interviews were sold as ‘added value’ - the idea being that packages were unnecessary because ‘we all already know the news now’, so the channel would focus on analysis and breaking news. Tbf Sky UK and CNNI are just as bad for that, these days (I think AJE are the only ones who do still have lots of packaged reports).
(I remember one editor - no longer at the BBC - basically saying ‘AI will read the news soon … so we’re live and breaking.’ Which IMO is ridiculous as the USP of TV news is the package. But what do I know…)
The Singapore thing makes no sense to me either, though presumably it’s down to money (like most things). I could see the Beeb maybe scrapping that output altogether and moving it to Washington. I’ll say this about the D.C. output - I find it much more vibrant and watchable than anything produced from London.
I agree, Asia is very badly covered by most English-language news channels. Actually I think AJE does (perhaps did?) do a better job than the others in that regard. Same with Africa and Latin America.
It’s dire, isn’t it. I remember a couple of years ago when they went through a phase of talking about illnesses. Very depressing! I wish we had something like ABC NB here (maybe without the merry-go-round of hosts, though!)
At this point, they should just remove a B and rename it Broadcasting Corporation. If you take out all the British charter stuff, that would save heaps! outsource everything!!!
It’s the same for R4 Today - which traditionally has 4-6 presenters who rotate in and out during the (7 day) week. I guess it comes down to the fact the BBC is traditionally more of a ‘public service utility’ where presenters are not the drawcard, the institution is. You’re tuning in for R4 Today, not for Nick Robinson or Justin Webb.
