‘Radically Reshaped’ BBC to Include Fewer Jobs and More Reruns

[Gerald]

LONDON — The British Broadcasting Corporation announced Thursday that it would eliminate 2,000 jobs, cut its sports budget, show more reruns, and broadcast fewer talk and game shows. Mark Thompson, the broadcaster’s director general, told his staff that the changes — which amount to cuts of about $1.03 billion a year, or a 20 percent reduction in spending over five years — would lead to a “smaller, radically reshaped BBC.” He said that no television or radio stations would be closed down and that some money would be reinvested in new programming and services. The BBC is financed mostly through a government-approved license fee, paid every year by every household in Britain that owns a television set. The fee brings in about $5.5 billion a year. In the early part of the century, spending increased annually, allowing the broadcaster to expand its services and introduce channels. But after a series of embarrassing episodes, including the disclosure of the huge salaries paid to bureaucrats in the organization, the BBC was forced to curtail spending. Last year, confronted with a Conservative-led government skeptical of its financing model, the BBC agreed to freeze the license fee at its current rate of £145.60, or about $224, a year until 2017.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/wo...html?ref=world


Note: October 6, 2011