Horrible wastefulness and duplication of coverage by the BBC. Is it not?
Kurian Pampadi, Journalist
+++
Original mail:
Hundreds of BBC News jobs at risk in attempt to cut costs by £89m
Reporters among 8,000 staff under most threat from World Service
merger with News after licence
fee deal
By Mark Sweney/Guardian
BBC News tabled proposals for widespread cuts to its 8,000 news staff
in the UK and abroad, as part of a plan to make annual savings of
£89m.
Senior members were informed of the plans put forward by Helen Boaden,
the director of BBC News, to make the savings by 2016-7 - with the
bulk from cutting reporting jobs. The cuts amount to a 20% saving from
a total budget of close to £450m. The BBC will also merge the
previously separately funded BBC World Service into the main News
division, as it contends with the consequences of a licence fee freeze
agreed with the coalition government last autumn.
Exact numbers of staff to be cut were not disclosed, but more detail
is expected to be revealed next week when the proposals are fleshed
out. However, if job losses were to match the 20% saving sought, it is
expected that as many as 1000 journalists may be forced to go. It is
expected that job losses will affect reporters on regional and
domestic news as well as international field correspondents, who are
most likely to be affected by the merger.
The plan is that some World Service journalists will take over BBC
News jobs. BBC News employs about 3,000 staff in London and overseas
and a further 3,000 around the UK providing coverage in the nations
and regions. The World Service employs an additional 2,000. "It should
be remembered these are just proposals. They have not yet been taken
to the BBC Trust and anything could happen," said one source.
BBC News and the World Service - for which the corporation is
officially taking over funding from the Foreign Office in 2013 - are
set to be brought together in the redeveloped Broadcasting House in
central London. A large number of regional editors from the World
Service are also thought likely to go.
Martin Bell, the former BBC foreign correspondent, said in an article
for the British Journalism Review that the BBC needed to reduce the
"expensive and wasteful practice" of sending news anchors such as Huw
Edwards "somewhere near the scene of a news event and pretending that
this adds value and authenticity".
Other proposals being discussed include making the BBC Parliament
channel, the most expensive the BBC operates in terms of the number of
viewers that it obtains, "more cost effective and accessible" and
making more money from selling BBC News output to overseas
broadcasters "without damaging our brand and reputation".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jun/10/bbc-news-world-service-jobs
Kurian Pampadi, Journalist
+++
Original mail:
Hundreds of BBC News jobs at risk in attempt to cut costs by £89m
Reporters among 8,000 staff under most threat from World Service
merger with News after licence
fee deal
By Mark Sweney/Guardian
BBC News tabled proposals for widespread cuts to its 8,000 news staff
in the UK and abroad, as part of a plan to make annual savings of
£89m.
Senior members were informed of the plans put forward by Helen Boaden,
the director of BBC News, to make the savings by 2016-7 - with the
bulk from cutting reporting jobs. The cuts amount to a 20% saving from
a total budget of close to £450m. The BBC will also merge the
previously separately funded BBC World Service into the main News
division, as it contends with the consequences of a licence fee freeze
agreed with the coalition government last autumn.
Exact numbers of staff to be cut were not disclosed, but more detail
is expected to be revealed next week when the proposals are fleshed
out. However, if job losses were to match the 20% saving sought, it is
expected that as many as 1000 journalists may be forced to go. It is
expected that job losses will affect reporters on regional and
domestic news as well as international field correspondents, who are
most likely to be affected by the merger.
The plan is that some World Service journalists will take over BBC
News jobs. BBC News employs about 3,000 staff in London and overseas
and a further 3,000 around the UK providing coverage in the nations
and regions. The World Service employs an additional 2,000. "It should
be remembered these are just proposals. They have not yet been taken
to the BBC Trust and anything could happen," said one source.
BBC News and the World Service - for which the corporation is
officially taking over funding from the Foreign Office in 2013 - are
set to be brought together in the redeveloped Broadcasting House in
central London. A large number of regional editors from the World
Service are also thought likely to go.
Martin Bell, the former BBC foreign correspondent, said in an article
for the British Journalism Review that the BBC needed to reduce the
"expensive and wasteful practice" of sending news anchors such as Huw
Edwards "somewhere near the scene of a news event and pretending that
this adds value and authenticity".
Other proposals being discussed include making the BBC Parliament
channel, the most expensive the BBC operates in terms of the number of
viewers that it obtains, "more cost effective and accessible" and
making more money from selling BBC News output to overseas
broadcasters "without damaging our brand and reputation".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jun/10/bbc-news-world-service-jobs
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