BBC to slash 1,000 jobs amid costs drive
THE BBC has announced plans to cut around 1,000 jobs to save more than £50m to address a funding shortfall.
Director-General Tony Hall said the corporation would become leaner as a result of merging divisions, cutting down management layers, reducing managers and improving processes.
He said: “A simpler, leaner, BBC is the right thing to do and it can also help us meet the financial challenges we face.
“We’ve already significantly cut the costs of running the BBC, but in times of very tough choices we need to focus on what really matters – delivering outstanding programmes and content for all our audiences.”
The publicly-funded corporation, which is dogged by allegations of a left-wing bias, employs several thousand of people at MediaCity in Salford.
Its plans, to be finalised by the autumn include: stripping out layers of management; reducing the number of divisions; joining-up technology teams across its Digital, Engineering and Worldwide divisions.
In addition it wants to “simplify and standardise procedures” particularly looking at how professional and support areas such as marketing and communications, finance, HR, IT support and legal are structured and can be simplified.
Hall told staff that the corporate needs to adjust to a reduction in the number of people watching live TV, meaning that fewer viewers pays the annual licence fee, which has been frozen for the last seven years.
