Sounds like the BBC's strategic thinkers want to shift resources from administration to programming by cutting 2,900 jobs -- or is it 5,300, as the Guardian says?
| Thompson says BBC 'must keep up' | |
BBC director general Mark Thompson has defended his decision to axe thousands of jobs saying the corporation must "keep up with the pace of change." About 2,900 jobs are to be cut, mainly from administration departments, while savings of £320m a year are to be made. Mr Thompson said the BBC must "grasp the nettle" of bureaucracy and plough the cash into content and programmes. Almost 2,000 workers are expected to move from London to Manchester to make the BBC better reflect its audience. Speaking to the BBC's Newsnight programme, Mr Thompson said he had "outlined a compelling view of the BBC's future". "Both I, Greg Dyke and John Birt before him have all looked at the issue of the BBC's bureaucracy, our processes, our layers," he said. "Now is the moment where we really do have to grasp some nettles there and say is there a way we can run this organisation more simply, more directly, with fewer meetings and less complexity and therefore transfer many, many millions of pounds out of that part of the BBC and into programmes." Here's the Guardian's version: 5,300 jobs to go in BBC shakeup He apologised to staff for the hardship they were facing with redundancies but said it was the price the corporation needed to pay to survive. "I understand that there will be a period of pain and uncertainty and I am sorry for that. "But in the end, the price is the right price to pay for the real prize of a strong an independent BBC in the future," he said in an address to staff this morning. It's a small point, but I have no idea what proportion those respectives cuts represent of the entire BBC workforce. Five per cent? Ten per cent? Savings of 320 million pounds are to be realized by this move. What percentage does that represent of the Beeb's budget? |
Savings will be ploughed into BBC programmes and content