The BBC World Service has outlined plans to “accelerate its digital offering and increase impact with audiences around the world”, but as part of a digital-first focus, a total of 382 jobs and radio services will be cut. What is selected?
The international broadcaster, owned and operated by Britain’s public broadcaster BBC with funding from the British government, said on Thursday it would make seven more of its foreign language services digital-only.
The BBC said on Thursday that the moves support the BBC’s strategy, unveiled earlier this year, “to create a modern, digitally-led and streamlined organization that licenses gets the most value from the fee and delivers more for audiences,” the BBC said on Thursday. “Changing audience needs around the world – more and more people are accessing news digitally – go hand in hand with a challenging financial environment.”
The BBC’s license fee of £159 ($173) a year, which UK taxpayers pay to help fund the BBC, has been a hot topic of debate over the years. At the end of March, the BBC said it would need to “find £285 million ($309 million) in annual savings by 2027/28 as a result of the recent licence, in the content and services we provide to our audiences”. Reduction will be required”. Settlement of fees with the British Government. Under this, the fee will be frozen at its current value for two years from ’22/’23 and then rise in line with inflation for the next four years.
“High inflation, rising costs and a cash-flat license fee settlement have made tough choices across the BBC, with the BBC’s international services cut by £28.5 million ($30.9 million) as part of a wider £500 million ) needs to be saved. ($543 million) in annual savings and reinvestment to make the BBC digital,” the broadcaster explained on Thursday. “The proposal would see a further seven language services migrate to digital only, building on the success of others who are already offering fully digital services and performing well with audiences. This means that almost half of all 41 language services will be digital only.
The BBC highlighted that the World Service will continue to operate in all languages and countries where it is currently available, stressing: “No language services will be discontinued.”
However, “some TV and radio programs will be discontinued under the new plans,” the BBC World Service acknowledged. “BBC Arabic Radio and BBC Farsi Radio will also be closed,” along with Chinese and other radio stations.
Language services that are already digital are BBC Azerbaijani, Brazilian, Marathi, Mando, Punjabi, Russian, Serbian, Sinhala, Thai, Turkish and Vietnamese. The language services the BBC is now proposing to transfer to digital-only formats are Chinese, Gujarati, Igbo, Indonesian, Pidgin, Urdu and Yoruba.
The BBC World Service will continue to rely heavily on journalists based outside the UK in the future. It said it would “move some productions out of London and closer to audiences to drive engagement, for example moving the Thai service from London to Bangkok, the Korean service to Seoul, the Bangla service to Dhaka and Focus on Africa. The TV bulletin will be broadcast from Nairobi.