The BBC is currently having so many problems and so much trouble that one might think that the 70 jobs that are about to be eliminated are no longer relevant for the huge company. But because it’s 70 positions in two of the channel’s flagship projects, BBC News and BBC World, things are still making waves. The simple message goes like this: The BBC is merging two major news channels and cutting dozens of jobs in London. A new channel called BBC News is scheduled to start in 2023 and will be served from London during the day and Washington and Singapore at night.
It’s just one of many austerity measures being hailed as a gain in modernity. The broadcaster describes the merger of the two well-known news products as an “optimization” that “makes the greatest possible use of the license fee and delivers more for the audience”. What to say when money is tight. For years, the BBC has been in an existential dispute with the Conservative government in London, which would like to replace the fee-based model with a subscription model and place the BBC under political supervision.
The most far-reaching reform, according to which defaulting license payers should no longer have been legally prosecuted, was just averted. Every Brit who uses the BBC has to pay an annual fee of just under 200 euros; If this initiative by the (outgoing) Johnson government had been implemented, the BBC management feared that millions might simply not have paid their fees. Nevertheless, the broadcaster currently has to save 337 million euros because Minister of Culture Nadine Dorries has frozen the fees.
Around 1,200 employees have left the BBC in the past two years
BBC digital director Naja Nielsen justified the merger with the fact that the media behavior of users is changing rapidly, millions of people are now following live reporting on the Internet. “That’s why we’re investing in new ways of reporting breaking news, and our news channel and digital teams will work hand-in-hand to bring the best journalism to audiences at home and abroad.” Unlike BBC News, BBC World is operated as a commercial foreign broadcaster by the parent company and is not financed from broadcasting fees; the international version is to be funded by advertising revenue, since the TV license can only be used for channels that can only be received in Great Britain.
Around 1,200 employees are said to have left the BBC in the past two years alone because the atmosphere is so bad and the criticism of the way the legendary public broadcaster works is so massive. Most recently, Director General Tim Davie had to throw himself in the dust when it became known that BBC reporter Martin Bashir had unfairly obtained access to the princess for his legendary 1995 interview with Lady Diana. The relationship with the royal family, in particular with heir to the throne William and his brother Harry, is said to have been badly damaged. It is almost the only good news that 70 percent of all Britons still consider the “old aunt” to be trustworthy.