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Sejal Karia reports on how cuts are being made to the BBC to cover a £ 1.4bn black hole that has grown during the pandemic.
BBC World News and BBC News will also merge to create a single 24-hour television news channel that serves both the UK and international audiences, the corporation said.
In the meantime, his regional television news programs in Oxford and Cambridge will be discarded.
It’s all part of a strategy to “build a digital BBC first”, presented by BBC Director-General Tim Davie.
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Speaking to BBC staff on Thursday, Davie said: “This is our time to build a digital BBC. Something genuinely new, a Reithian organization for the digital age, a positive force for the UK and the world. .
“Independent, impartial, constantly innovating and at the service of everyone. A global, new global media organization that has never been seen before.
“Driven by a desire to improve life and society for our customers and licensee payers in every corner of the UK and beyond. They want us to keep the BBC relevant and fight for something that in 2022 is more important than May.
“To do that, we need to evolve faster and accept the big changes in the market around us.”
He added: “I believe in a public service BBC for all, adequately funded, relevant to all, universally available and growing in the age of demand. This plan puts us on this journey.”
The news comes from the back of the BBC that it needs to save £ 285 million more in response to the Culture Secretary’s announcement in January that the license fee would be frozen at £ 159 over the next two years.
It has already suffered a series of rounds of layoffs and cuts over the past decade caused by increases below license rate inflation.
Davie, who took over from Lord Tony Hall as director general of the BBC in September 2020, has overseen a thinning of the corporation since taking office, with the BBC losing about 1,200 employees in the last 18 months. .
BBC Four, which hosts BBC Proms, BBC Young Dancer and BBC Young Musician, was launched in 2002 and has traditionally featured mainly artistic and documentary content, as well as various international dramas.
However, last year the corporation announced that it would become the “home” of archived content and broadcast fewer original programs.
The BBC did not say whether BBC Four, as well as CBBC and Radio 4 Extra, would eventually move online to the iPlayer service.