BBC To Close CBBC & BBC Four As Linear Channels; 1,000 Jobs At Risk As Public Broadcaster Begins Its “Digital First” Push
deadline.comThe BBC has announced it will axe up to 1,000 employees across the next few years while also stopping the broadcast of smaller, but much-loved, linear channels such as children’s channel CBBC and BBC Four.
The move comes as director general Tim Davie laid out initial plans as to how the BBC will save around £1.5B ($2B) across the next few years as a result of a government-enforced license fee freeze across the next two years.The public broadcaster also revealed that it would be merging its BBC World News and BBC News Channel into a single, 24-hour TV channel as it makes a big push to digitize its business across the next few years.
Its Radio 4 station would move online to BBC sounds rather than via its traditional broadcast outlet.In an announcement to staff on Thursday, Director General Tim Davie told staff “this is our moment to build a digital-first BBC.”The move will come as somewhat of a surprise given only last month Davie rejected the idea of completely cutting a whole service, but the exec said there was a robust plan in place to move these channels to the BBC iPlayer, with an ambition to reach 75% of BBC viewers through iPlayer each week.The company will ramp up investment in its regional programming while making a big push to accelerate digital growth across its television and radio programs.The first phase of savings represents £500M ($628M) of annual savings and reinvestment to make the BBC digital-led.
As part of this, £200M ($251M) will contribute to the £285M ($358M) annual funding gap by 2027/28, created by the license fee settlement earlier this year.
Read more on deadline.com
