The drumbeat of BBC cuts continues, with Deadline hearing that roughly 4% of the British broadcaster’s technology unit is expected to take voluntary redundancy.
Around 151 employees are set to exit BBC Media Tech, the unit that helps power online services including iPlayer and BBC Sounds. The voluntary redundancies are expected to deliver savings of £14.5 million ($19.8M) over the coming years.
UPDATE
Inevitable. The whole media landscape is vastly different today than what it was 20 years ago.
“However, at a time of constrained resources, the BBC should not be paying over the odds for overseas content, particularly when it’s bidding against other commercial UK broadcasters to do so. We do not believe that this provides value for money for the licence fee payer.”
ITV has consistently raised the issue in recent years. In a written submission to the committee, ITV said: “We can see no reason for the BBC to use public funds to compete for content that would otherwise find a home on free-to-access commercial services.