BBC to Implement Cuts Following License-Fee Freeze

[nycnewsjunkie 1256]

On May 26th, BBC Director-General Tim Davie announced plans to cut staff and services in an effort to save £500 Million annually over the next few years. The plan is billed as a “digital-first” initiative to modernize the corporation, but is being implemented after the British government announced a freeze of the television license-fee at £159 ($200) for the next two years. The BBC is funded entirely by said license-fee, and the current UK government has previously criticized this method of funding.

 

Highlights:

• BBC World News will merge into the domestic BBC News Channel. BBC News will serve as the sole news channel for both the UK and international audiences, though there will be some separate broadcasts for the British and world feeds.
• BBC Four and CBBC will cease linear broadcasting, and will become digital-only services through BBC iPlayer.
• Radio 4 Extra will cease linear broadcasting, and will become digital-only through BBC Sounds.
• The regional news program in Oxford will be axed this November, and will merge with the news program from Southampton.
• The BBC will request Ofcom to lift some restrictions on BBC iPlayer
• “A number” of BBC World Service languages will become online-only.
• 1,000 staff are projected to be cut over the next few years.

 

Links:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2022/plan-to-deliver-a-digital-first-bbc/

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-61591674

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-61593568

https://deadline.com/2022/05/bbc-close-cbbc-bbc-four-linear-channels-1000-redundancies-expected-public-broadcaster-next-few-years-1235033365/

Edited May 31, 2022 by nycnewsjunkie
Edited for clarity

[NYTV 105]

So on top of this and Channel 4 to go private, What would the UK television scene look like when all this is done?

[nycnewsjunkie 1256]

On 6/1/2022 at 12:51 AM, NYTV said:

So on top of this and Channel 4 to go private, What would the UK television scene look like when all this is done?

My apologies for not responding to this earlier, as it never showed up in my notifications.

 

Much of the current media measures being taken by the Boris Johnson's government are political in nature. In the case of Channel 4, it's news department (which, admittedly, is rather leftish) is not friendly to his administration, and that is one of the major factors behind privatization. The gov't might claim it has to do with making Channel 4 more competitive and freeing up a burden on taxpayers, but Channel 4 was never meant to be a competitive network. Furthermore, it wouldn't free up any burdens, since Channel 4 receives no public funding, even though it is publicly owned.

 

In the case of the BBC, there's a valid case to be made that inflation has made it difficult to justify the license fee being increased, hence the freeze. However, Johnson's government has also been hostile to the BBC, and Nadine Dorries (the culture secretary) has advocated for the permanent abolition of the license fee in the past. Such a move would completely change the nature of the BBC, and weaken it to the core. If I had to guess, the UK television scene would have a stronger private sector at the expense of public broadcasting, but considering that Johnson's government isn't all that popular at the moment, nothing is definitive.

[Bananaman 13]

On 6/19/2022 at 8:53 PM, nycnewsjunkie said:

If I had to guess, the UK television scene would have a stronger private sector at the expense of public broadcasting, but considering that Johnson's government isn't all that popular at the moment, nothing is definitive.

I mean, wasn’t a similar argument used for the Broadcasting Act 1990 for the lessening of government oversight and regulation of ITV (Which was arguably done for political reasons as well)?I guess the merger and accusation era will only continue, even if the UK media market is already highly consolidated.

[EVVTV12 73]

Update to with the BBC and Channel 4. 
 

A lot has happened since May like one PM kicked out by his party, another that just up and quit, and one that seems to be ok. We also say “God Save The King.” Anyway, the sale of Channel 4 is off and has been since January. The last time talk of selling Channel 4 was back in 2016. 
 

As for the BBC, well things have changed and some may not. BBC World News did merge with the BBC News Channel (UK). Not many people are happy with that. BBC 4 might stay on the air now. Ratings for the network in December hit 19 million while February was 15.9 million. Four is running mainly older programming like Come Dancing and the great Keeping Up Appearances. The budget for Four is £22M while BBC Three has a budget of £80M and has had terrible ratings since restarting. 
 

At the same time, the BBC is cutting roughly 1000 hours of programming this year. In 2022, the broadcaster made 12,500 hours, or 34.25 hours a day. 
 

As for CBBC, no changes have been made thus far. 

https://deadline.com/2023/01/channel-4-sale-off-rishi-sunak-michelle-donelan-1235211970/

 

https://deadline.com/2023/03/bbc-considers-bbc4-closure-u-turn-1235314448/amp/
 

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-65129480.amp

[mre29 1262]

So, for those of you here in the US who get it, how is the "new" BBC (World) News, anyway?

 

[C Block 1463]

22 minutes ago, mre29 said:

So, for those of you here in the US who get it, how is the "new" BBC (World) News, anyway?

 

 

It's certainly different, and honestly, not that bad. I think UK viewers lost a lot more in the merger than World viewers did.

 

The story selection is different with more UK stories. However, in my view, this has been going on ever since the pandemic anyway when they substantially started doing a lot more simulcasts between the two channels. The balance of international-to-domestic stories is more in line with something like France 24 than it was of the old BBC World News.

 

The format is very different. They've ditched their super traditional format in favor of lots of live elements. They run very few PKGs and instead do a lot of live talkbacks with correspondents and various experts. It almost harkens more to an American rather than British style of cable news. It feels less polished than the previous format, which was heavy on the well-produced, lengthy reporter PKGs, but it does feel more engaging and immediate with all the live presence. I think this is actually a good strategy.

 

My Comcast isn't filling the shorter ad breaks, so I'm seeing the "Around the UK" segments that run at about ~10 minutes past. In the past during joint newscasts, the anchor would just read a few UK stories during this opt-out. But now, they've decided to run shortened evergreen stories from BBC's local stations. I think they feel super awkward, and they probably should just go back to what they used to do. Also, the newscasts sometimes have awkward endings as sometimes they might be in a live interview at the end but still have a hard out at :26.

 

Some people on the UK forums are really panning the lack of any kind of visual rebrand. The logo's a little different, and there's some inconsistency with show opens from hour to hour, but it's otherwise the same music, graphics, and studios as before. It seems like a bigger visual refresh will probably happen later. I can forgive any kind of visual inconsistencies given that behind the scenes, the BBC is probably more focused on trying to figure out what the day-to-day operations of the merged channel will be like.

[nycnewsjunkie 1256]

8 hours ago, C Block said:

It's certainly different, and honestly, not that bad. I think UK viewers lost a lot more in the merger than World viewers did.

 

The story selection is different with more UK stories. However, in my view, this has been going on ever since the pandemic anyway when they substantially started doing a lot more simulcasts between the two channels. The balance of international-to-domestic stories is more in line with something like France 24 than it was of the old BBC World News.

 

The format is very different. They've ditched their super traditional format in favor of lots of live elements. They run very few PKGs and instead do a lot of live talkbacks with correspondents and various experts. It almost harkens more to an American rather than British style of cable news. It feels less polished than the previous format, which was heavy on the well-produced, lengthy reporter PKGs, but it does feel more engaging and immediate with all the live presence. I think this is actually a good strategy.

 

My Comcast isn't filling the shorter ad breaks, so I'm seeing the "Around the UK" segments that run at about ~10 minutes past. In the past during joint newscasts, the anchor would just read a few UK stories during this opt-out. But now, they've decided to run shortened evergreen stories from BBC's local stations. I think they feel super awkward, and they probably should just go back to what they used to do. Also, the newscasts sometimes have awkward endings as sometimes they might be in a live interview at the end but still have a hard out at :26.

 

Some people on the UK forums are really panning the lack of any kind of visual rebrand. The logo's a little different, and there's some inconsistency with show opens from hour to hour, but it's otherwise the same music, graphics, and studios as before. It seems like a bigger visual refresh will probably happen later. I can forgive any kind of visual inconsistencies given that behind the scenes, the BBC is probably more focused on trying to figure out what the day-to-day operations of the merged channel will be like.

I don’t think it’s as bad as I thought it would be. The idea of having separate domestic and world news channels was becoming a bit of an anachronism, and the BBC World News channel was already pumping out a lot of programming from the domestic channel anyway.

 

That said, I have two primary criticisms. First, I remember reading that they were planning on adding a simulcast of a Radio 4 talk show (a la LBC). That stuff does NOT belong on BBC News Channel. The second criticism is the cancellation of Outside Source, which was, in my opinion, the BBC’s best news program. It was also a good model of the kind of journalism that we should be, but aren’t, attempting to cultivate in the USA. I know that the OS team is still contributing to the channel, and that Ros Atkins’ “explainers” are being implemented across more programs and platforms, but OS worked really well as a standalone show, and it was a big mistake to cancel it.

Edited April 14 by nycnewsjunkie