BBC News channel intro

The BBC News channel will see 'fewer deployments, fewer specials and more repetition of best items' under cuts


Director of news at the BBC Helen Boaden has told staff in the news division they will "bear the brunt" of cuts announced by the broadcaster yesterday (6 October), with up to 800 full time posts to be closed within the division.

Boaden was addressing staff in a detailed speech following the BBC's proposals to cut around 2,000 jobs as it attempts to make savings of around £670 million a year by 2016/17.

A public consultation was launched by the BBC Trust on the 'Delivering Quality First' proposals, which were produced in response to the licence fee agreement of 2010.

Following confirmation of the proposals, Helen Boaden told staff the budget reduction for BBC News would drop from 16 per cent to 13 per cent, around £56 million, once investments the department is hoping to receive after it achieves its savings are taken into consideration.

She added that within the News group around 70 per cent of its costs are in people, which will mean in order to make its savings the group will be closing the equivalent of between 700 to 800 full time posts over five years.

But she added that once these savings have been made the group's investments will "kick in" and new jobs will be created.

"So at the end of this five year process, we expect to have reduced our full-time
work force by between the equivalent of 550 to 650 full-time posts across English
Regions and Network News," she said.

"Throughout this DQF process, we've tried hard to keep the needs of our different
audiences front of mind," she added.

"Our only real task at the BBC is to serve our audiences and we should never forget that. That's why in allocating cuts, we've focused much more on reductions which will affect us but minimise the impact on our audiences.

"We've done this through a combination of cuts and changes to what we give the
audience, and through 'productivity savings', based on the principle that you change the way you work to save money but deliver the same amount and quality of output as before.

"Productivity involves things like changing the skills mix so smaller teams can do
the same output; changing the processes we use in our daily jobs to make them
more streamlined; slimming down our senior management population by giving
people extra responsibilities; changing the terms and conditions of our people;
cutting our spend on presenters."

She added that while the figures "are very sobering", the broadcaster had to be "realistic".

"I know that you care about what you do and you care passionately about your output. Already today some individuals have been told that their posts are going to be changed or closed and that they will be at risk of redundancy. Their reaction of shock, anger or grief is exactly what we'd all feel in the same circumstances.

"And I'd ask all of you to be as sensitive as you can to colleagues in this situation. There is no nice or easy way to find out that the BBC reluctantly may have to lose you. And both personally and professionally I regret very much that anyone has to go through this experience.

"But I'm afraid we have to be utterly realistic about our situation. One of our best
ever investigative reporters, John Ware, has a great phrase about impartiality. He
says, 'you have to report the world as it is not as you might like it to be'. That
phrase could be adapted for our position in relation to DQF. We have to deal with
the world as it is. Not as we might like it to be."

Some of the details on the changes proposed within the News group, as outlined by  Boaden, are copied below. Her full speech can be found at this link.
  • The News Channel
"Breaking news will still reign supreme but there will be fewer deployments, fewer
specials, cheaper back half hours, more repetition of the best items, more from
the nations and regions and the removal of our dedicated business slots. We will also be cutting back some double-headed presentation.

"Correspondents covering a breaking news story will file a few sentences of text for all platforms first, then appear live on either the News Channel or World News, depending on whether the story is domestic or international. Their first answer should be structured in such a way as to be usable on other output."
  • Local radio
"Our proposed changes should allow us to preserve that quality and our growing
audiences. But it does involve changes to local programming in off peak times
where some stations will share programmes.

"We’re also proposing a programme that would be broadcast across all stations
early on weekday evenings."
  • Regional television
"On Regional Television, our objective has been to protect the built bulletins
especially the 6.30pm slot which remains the UK’s most popular television news
bulletin.

"But we are proposing to end the regional summaries on Saturday lunchtime and
at 3pm on weekdays along with the weekday national daytime summaries.

"The decision to protect the 6.30pm bulletins in the regions has come at some cost
to the BBC One Regional Current series, Inside Out. We expect each region to
retain a smaller team for Inside Out and at times, we expect output to be shared
across regions. We’re also imposing a significant cut to the budgets of Inside Out though we hope to ring-fence money for them to continue to do investigations and the big stories like the economy."
  • Current Affairs
"On BBC One, we have ringfenced the number of hours produced by Panorama and protected our BBC 3 output.

"We'll be cutting about nine hours a year of ad hoc Current Affairs series on BBC
Two, things like travelogues and some social history. But our international strand, This World, stays intact along with ambitious series like The Toughest Place to Be."
  • Radio
"On Radio 4 we’ll be closing Taking a Stand and Beyond Westminster and there'll
be fewer editions of some strands. Radio 5 Live will decommission 5Live
Investigates in its current form.

"We are also planning to reduce the number of dedicated programme reporters working for the Radio Four Sequences and Newsnight. Though even after these cuts, they will still have more than 20 dedicated reporters between them.

"We will cut back on the dedicated news service to Radio 1Xtra and reduce costs by merging the Radio One and 1Xtra teams.

"On Radio 5 Live the budget for News content on the station will be reduced by
about 20 per cent and will focus on breaking news, core stories of the day and being the home of national debate. There will be a reduction in production staffing and in the number and spread of 5 Lives dedicated reporters."
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