The BBC is cutting more than 100 news jobs and taking two television channels off the air as part of a £500 million savings drive, the broadcaster announced in London this week.
BBC News confirmed the "net closure of just over 100 roles" in an internal note from news director Rachel Jupp, worth about £5.5 million in savings. The cuts form part of roughly 2,000 job reductions the wider organisation is considering. BBC Three and BBC Scotland will stop broadcasting as linear channels and live on the iPlayer streaming platform instead, while Radio 4 Extra's archive programming moves to BBC Sounds.
"We need to make every pound work harder for audiences as we respond to the immediate cost pressures and reinvent the BBC for a changing world," Director General Matt Brittin told staff, adding that much of the affected channels' content will still be found on iPlayer and Sounds.
The announcement drew political fire, particularly in Scotland, where culture minister Mairi McAllan called moving BBC Scotland online "wholly unacceptable." The BBC had already announced plans in June to cut another 550 roles across news, nations and content by the end of the financial year.
The corporation's income from the licence fee has fallen by around a quarter in real terms since 2017, squeezing a broadcaster that remains one of the world's most watched news organisations — and forcing a rolling series of restructurings that staff unions say are hollowing out its newsrooms.
