The BBC is expected to announce hundreds of redundancies as staff brace themselves for heavy cuts to high-profile news programmes and an increasingly centralised system for producing the corporation’s journalism.
In an email to staff, Fran Unsworth, the head of news, said she would use an all-staff meeting on Wednesday to explain how the corporation plans to put into action the BBC News mission statement of being “distinctive, trusted, engaging everyone, every day”.
In reality, what most BBC employees are concerned about is whether their job is facing the axe in an effort to save tens of millions of pounds, with the National Union of Journalists already gearing up for a battle with management over redundancies.
At the heart of the proposals is a plan to centralise the production of the corporation’s reporting. Rather than having teams of journalists focused on individual programmes – such as the soon-to-be-axed Victoria Derbyshire show – there will be more pooling of reporters.
In theory this will reduce duplication of effort, with groups of journalists working on investigations and original reporting before pushing it out across television, radio, and online. The BBC argues that the award-winning journalism, of shows such as Victoria Derbyshire’s can be produced for multiple outlets without the expense of presenting in the format of a standalone news outlet.
Many BBC reporters fear this proposed system could become hard to operate in practice, given the different demands of outlets such as the Today programme and the BBC News website. There are also concerns that niche stories could no longer be covered as part of the push to unify more of the corporation’s news output.
The BBC declined to comment on the announcement and would not confirm speculation that hundreds of jobs cuts are planned.
The BBC is facing an uncertain financial future with the government reviewing whether to decriminalise non-payment of the licence fee. Last week, Tony Hall, the director general, announced he was stepping down to allow a successor to be appointed before the BBC begins negotiations with the government over the rate it can charge for the licence fee from 2022.
Hall has also criticised the corporation for contributing to a toxic discourse around political journalism, which he said was aimed at trying to “catch out” politicians.
Speaking at Edelman Trust Barometer 2020 event on Tuesday, he said: “I’m a great believer in the long-form political interview where you can explore at length, not in soundbites, the real policy decisions that politicians are making. Exploring those sort of nuances is an important part of what we should do.”
In a separate development, on Tuesday the BBC told production staff who make non-news or sport programmes for the corporation’s national radio stations that about 60 redundancies were on the way.
“Rising costs mean we shall end this year with a deficit of around a million pounds,” said Graham Ellis, the BBC’s controller of radio production, warning that his unit faced a decline in the “number and value of commissions” from the corporation’s national radio stations over the coming years and would have to cut a substantial proportion of the corporation’s in-house production staff.
He said that while management would do its utmost to avoid compulsory redundancies, they could not be ruled out if not enough people chose to take a voluntary payout. He also said he wanted to create 40 new roles for content producers, suggesting an increased focus on social media output, although staff raised concerns that these would be paid less than traditional radio-producing jobs.
Ellis said he was hoping podcasts could provide a way of increasing the amount of money flowing to his division of the BBC, which competes with external independent production companies to make BBC programmes. “This is a tough message on which to start 2020 but I’m pleased to say we are also seeing reinvestment in some programmes from next year, especially documentaries and drama,” he said.
“That’ll mean better programme budgets which help to protect staff time on programmes. We’re also investing in a development unit to capitalise on the popularity of podcasts which offer us an opportunity to grow new business.”
