BBC set to slash 10% jobs

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Britain’s venerable public broadcaster, plans one of the biggest shake-ups in its 82-year hi...

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Britain’s venerable public broadcaster, plans one of the biggest shake-ups in its 82-year history by axing at least 10 per cent of its jobs and trimming 320 million pounds in costs, company sources said.

Director General Mark Thompson — who famously described the BBC as ‘‘basking in a Jacuzzi of spare public cash’’ when he ran rival broadcaster Channel 4 — will announce the cuts in a presentation to staff on Tuesday.

The BBC, one of the world’s best-known media brands and home to shows like EastEnders and The Office, will cut at least 2,900 of its 28,000 jobs over two to three years, according to an executive in the company.

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The plan is part of Thompson’s strategy for safeguarding the licence fee — a tax on UK television-owning households that brings in some 2.8 billion pounds ($5.5 billion) per year for the BBC — after a year when the broadcaster’s relationship with Tony Blair’s government has come under extreme strain. A judge savaged a BBC report that the government ‘‘sexed up’’ evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, forcing the resignation of Thompson’s predecessor Greg Dyke and Chairman Gavyn Davies.

The BBC’s editorial controls took another hit last week, when the corporation’s international TV channel was duped into airing an interview with a fake Dow Chemical spokesman over India’s Bhopal disaster. —Reuters

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