The BBC headquarters in London in 2023.DANIEL LEAL/AFP/Getty Images
The BBC said Wednesday that it plans to cut up to 2,000 jobs to save 10 per cent of its annual budget – £500-million (US$677-million) – over the next two years.
The layoffs announced during a call with staff are the biggest in more than a decade at the U.K. national broadcaster.
“I know this creates real uncertainty, but we wanted to be open about the challenge,” interim director-general Rhodri Talfan Davies said in a staff e-mail.
Davies said that the reductions were driven by inflation, pressures to licence fee and commercial income and a turbulent global economy.
The BBC said earlier this year that it faced “substantial financial pressures” and wanted to cut about a tenth of its budget by 2029. The bulk of the cuts are to be made in the next fiscal year beginning April 1, 2027.
The cuts come as former Google executive Matt Brittin is scheduled to take over as director-general next month.
He will fill the vacancy left after Tim Davie, and head of news Deborah Turness resigned over a misleading edit in a documentary about U.S. President Donald Trump’s speech on Jan. 6, 2021, before his followers stormed the U.S. Capitol.
Trump is suing the BBC for US$10-billion for defamation.
The BBC is both a beloved and oft-criticized cultural institution funded by an annual licence fee, which recently rose to £180 (US$244), paid by all U.K. households who watch live television or any BBC content.
Opponents of the fee, including rival commercial broadcasters, have grown louder in an era of digital streaming, when many people no longer have television sets or follow traditional television schedules.
The centre-left Labour government has vowed to ensure that the BBC has “sustainable and fair” funding, but hasn’t ruled out replacing the license fee with another funding model.
The BBC was founded in 1922 as a radio service to “inform, educate and entertain.” It now operates 15 U.K. national and regional television channels, several international channels, 10 national radio stations, dozens of local radio stations, the globe-spanning World Service radio and extensive digital output, including the iPlayer streaming service.