The Stage

1,800 face redundancy as Thompson seeks to streamline BBC

Published Thursday 18 October 2007 at 13:30 by Alistair Smith

Director-general Mark Thompson has unveiled plans for a radical overhaul of the BBC, which will see 1,800 redundancies as he seeks to produce a “smaller but fitter organisation”.

A £2 billion shortfall also needs to be filled due to the lower-than expected licence fee settlement.

The organisation’s TV drama department is expected to be relatively unscathed by the job cuts, with news and factual production the worst affected.

The six-year plan, Delivering Creative Future, will focus on three areas - “fewer but better, more innovative and more distinctive programmes”, increased digital content and a smaller BBC, which it is hoped will provide better value to audiences.

Thompson said: “Media is transforming. Audiences are transforming. It would be easy to say the sheer pace of this revolution is too fast for the BBC. That for us to do what other media players are doing - integrating newsrooms, mixing media, exploiting the same content aggressively across different platforms - is just too radical.

“But I think we can see both here and around the world the price you pay for taking what looks like the safe option.

“I’ve devoted almost my whole working life to the BBC, much of that not as a suit but as a rank-and-file programme-maker. I love the BBC and what it stands for. I care too much to see it drift steadily into irrelevance.”

Over the next six years, the BBC priority sectors will be output in journalism, drama, knowledge and comedy programming.

In drama programming, the plan is to focus on “high-impact, distinctive drama series of wide appeal and range” with new five-part drama serial Cranford and shows such as Doctor Who and Spooks cited as examples of this.

Thompson has vowed the comedy department will continue to be the biggest investor in original comedy in the UK.

However, production will see cuts, with 10% fewer original shows by 2012/13, as Thompson looks to axe “lower impact programming to focus on fewer, higher quality, programmes.” Meanwhile BBC3’s budget has been slashed by £10 million.