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The BBC plans to chop 500 jobs because the UK nationwide broadcaster seeks extra value financial savings after a savage real-term decline in its funding from the licence charge over the previous decade.
Samir Shah, who turned chair of the company this 12 months, on Tuesday warned the funding squeeze meant its “content material budgets are actually impacted, which in flip may have a major impression on the broader artistic sector throughout the UK”.
The publicly funded broadcaster has registered a real-term fall in earnings of near a 3rd since 2010 — a distinction of greater than £1bn a 12 months.
Underneath the earlier Conservative authorities, the licence charge was frozen in 2022 after which set from this 12 months on the lowest attainable price of inflation. The BBC has already been compelled to chop jobs and curtail programmes, similar to flagship present affairs programme Newsnight.
The tv market has additionally change into more and more difficult for the company, with the rise in reputation of US streamers and youthful individuals shunning broadcast TV for digital platforms.
In 2023, about 500,000 households cancelled their licence charge, which is payable by all households that watch dwell TV, in line with the BBC’s annual report, which was revealed on Tuesday.
About 23.9mn licence charges had been in power on the finish of the 12 months, it mentioned.
The broadcaster, which employs 21,795 individuals, promised to “speed up the tempo of change to extend relevance and worth”. The pledge will imply much less deal with conventional broadcasting and extra funding in digital providers.
Director-general Tim Davie, who in March known as for reform of the licence charge as a part of a push to show the BBC right into a extra industrial operation, mentioned: “What’s underneath means is a complete reshaping . . . for the longer term and a large switch of assets from linear to digital.”
Sir Keir Starmer’s authorities will lead negotiations over the licence charge, which is due for renewal in 2027. BBC executives see a Labour administration as a lift for its future funding prospects; many Conservative politicians had been against the obligatory fee.
Davie welcomed Labour’s dedication to public service broadcasting after the prime minister mentioned on a visit to Washington, DC this month that his occasion was dedicated “to the BBC and to the licensing scheme”.
He additionally promised that the following season of Strictly Come Dancing, the company’s flagship weekend primetime present, would go forward after the BBC put in place measures to guard celeb contestants.
Davie mentioned he was “upset” by allegations of abusive behaviour on the present however mentioned he was assured the BBC might ship it “efficiently” later this 12 months.
The BBC has launched a evaluate into the allegations and its response, which Davie mentioned can be “resolved quickly”.
Complaints made by former contestants on Strictly Come Dancing mark the most recent disaster in one other bruising 12 months for the BBC, which has confronted questions over presenters’ behaviour and criticism over its impartiality as a public sector broadcaster.
In its accounts for 2023-24, the company confirmed Huw Edwards remained its best-paid information reader, though he was on medical depart for a lot of the 12 months.
The veteran broadcaster, who give up in April after he was alleged to have paid for sexually express photos, earned greater than £475,000, up from £435,000 in 2022-23.
Gary Lineker, the presenter of Match of the Day who has been on the centre of disputes over impartiality, was the BBC’s highest-paid presenter, taking house greater than £1.3mn.
Soccer pundits Alan Shearer and Alex Scott had been paid greater than £380,000 and £220,000 respectively, whereas Radio 2 host Zoe Ball earned near £1mn.
Davie was the top-paid government, incomes £525,000 in contrast with the BBC’s median pay of £52,000.