The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has announced a proposal to let off 382 of its employees as ambitions to expand its global digital operations rise.
The UK’s largest media conglomerate unveiled plans in July to merge BBC World News television with its domestic UK equivalent into a single channel, which would launch in April 2023.
It said that by reducing back on its Iranian-language service among other things, the decision was made as part of a cost-saving initiative and shift to digital platforms.
The BBC, which will commemorate its centennial in October, announced that it would need to make savings of £28.5 million ($31 million) in its overseas services as part of bigger cuts of £500 million, which unions blamed on the UK government.
One of the most recognizable international brands from the UK, BBC World Service broadcasts in 41 languages to an estimated 364 million listeners each week.
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However, the company claimed that shifting to “digital-first” made financial sense because audience patterns were shifting and more people were obtaining news online, along with a block on BBC funding and rising operating costs.
The BBC stated in an online statement that “today’s proposals include a net total of about 382 post closures.”
There are already eleven language services that are available only online: Azerbaijani, Brazilian, Marathi, Mundo, Punjabi, Russian, Serbian, Sinhala, Thai, Turkish, and Vietnamese.
They will be joined by seven additional languages, including Chinese, Gujarati, Igbo, Indonesian, Pidgin, Urdu, and Yoruba, as part of the reorganization plans.
If the plans are accepted by the workers and unions, radio services in Arabic, Persian, Kyrgyz, Hindi, Bengali, Chinese, Indonesian, Tamil, and Urdu will also be discontinued.
Since audiences have more than doubled since 2018, according to BBC World Service Director Liliane Landor, there is a “compelling case” for extending digital services.
According to her, “the way audiences receive news and material is changing, and it’s getting harder to reach and engage people around the world with good, reliable journalism.”
Philippa Childs, the president of the broadcasting union Bectu, expressed disappointment with the amendments that had been suggested.
While acknowledging that the BBC must change to meet the demands of a shifting media landscape, she stated, “Once again, it is the workforce that is hurt by the government’s badly considered political decisions.”
She said that the cash crunch and necessity for a cut were caused by the government’s freeze of the licence fee that funds the BBC World Service.
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