BBC to slash its budget by a fifth
Mark Thompson, the BBC’s director general, has announced that the broadcaster is raising its target for cuts from 16% to 20% over four years.
The move is intended to free up an additional £400m to invest in programming and technology.
It comes as the BBC reorganises in order to meet the cost of taking on the additional responsibilities, such as funding the World Service and Welsh language broadcaster S4C, handed to it by the government in the current license fee settlement.
Thompson intends to meet the ambitious targets through a combination of efficiency savings and a reduction in its overheads to ensure that at least 90% of the license fee is spent on content and its delivery to viewers.
Additional savings will be made by reducing the remuneration of senior executives and spending on online services by a quarter. Human resources and finance will also see its budget slashed by 25%.
Nevertheless Thompson admits that the corporations programming and content budget will still have to take a 20% hit, half of which will be made by “doing less”.
A consultation has been initiated with staff to elicit how best these cuts can be made with their recommendations to the BBC Trust being made in the Summer.