BBC faces budget cuts and a digital transition crisis
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The bars around the BBC’s Oxford Circus headquarters in central London have been bustling with activity, hosting numerous farewell parties for veteran journalists leaving the organization. Over the past three years, restructuring plans have followed one another, and the number of employees has already been reduced by 1,800 (bringing the total to 17,700, including 5,500 journalists). By fall 2023, even previously untouchable flagship programs have been hit, with savings imposed on the major evening news program, “Newsnight”, and the investigative program “Panorama”.
On March 26, Tim Davie, the director general of British public media (television, radio and web), reaffirmed in a major speech the financial crisis facing his group. “Fourteen years of cuts had reduced its budget by 30% in real terms…between 2010 and 2020.”
Over this decade, successive Conservative governments have imposed either a freeze on the license fee or a below-inflation increase, while cutting specific funding for the World Service (international programs) and helping the elderly pay their license fees. A savings plan of £500 million (€585 million) a year is currently underway, and Davie has announced that a further £200 million will have to be added.
‘A short-sighted approach’
Under normal circumstances, such a budget cut would already have been painful. However, it comes at a time when the world of television is undergoing a historic transformation, with competition from streaming platforms like Netflix and social media. In 2022, according to Ofcom, the UK’s telecoms regulator, Britons watched an average of four and a half hours of video a day, of which only two hours was live TV.
For the under-25s, time spent in front of the TV has been divided by three in 10 years, reaching around 40 minutes a day in 2022. Among older people, the downward trend also began two years ago. “To strip money from the BBC during this period has been particularly short-sighted,” criticized Davie.
Even in these circumstances, the corporation has been able to hold its own. It remains, by far, the most widely read, listened to or watched media in the UK, with almost 90% of British adults using it every week. Globally, 450 million people do the same (including its 41 foreign-language versions), making it the world’s leading English-language media brand. “The British public spend more time with BBC TV and iPlayer than all the big streamers [Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+] combined,” Davie pointed out.
Real and rapid decline
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