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The BBC has pledged to relocate 400 jobs outside of London as it faces a battle to secure a future financial deal from a government that wants to redistribute spending across the UK.
The corporation’s managing director, Tim Davie, announced the staffing changes on Thursday morning, saying the corporation had to prove its value to audiences across the UK by producing shows closer to where they lived and spending more money. outside the capital.
Among the changes are:
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Specialized journalism teams covering topics such as the environment, technology and education will relocate from London to new bases in Leeds, Cardiff, Glasgow and Birmingham.
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Daytime shows on Radio 1, Radio 2 and 1Xtra will be presented from other parts of the UK.
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The BBC will launch two new full-length drama series to depict life outside the capital, one set in the north of England and the other in a decentralized nation.
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The Radio 3 leadership team will relocate to Salford, followed by the majority of the 6 Music staff.
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One third of Radio 4’s Today show episodes will be co-hosted from outside London, and Radio 4’s Newsnight and PM will also move out of London on a regular basis.
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The corporation has pledged to increase the proportion of its television budget spent outside of London from 50% to 60% by 2028.
One of the biggest challenges for the BBC will be convincing big-name presenters and top executives to move to the new locations, rather than simply traveling from London. The BBC confirmed that all members of the London-based corporation’s executive board are expected to remain in the capital.
Job postings are expected to be welcomed by regional leaders and the government. However, staff from many of the affected London-based teams told The Guardian that they expected the vast majority of their colleagues to agree to the dismissal rather than uprooting their families and relocating to another part of the country.
In total, around 200 BBC news jobs will be relocated, along with a similar number of functions in other parts of BBC production. The corporation also aims to create an additional 600 new roles based outside of London over the next seven years, at a time when it is trying to shrink its total workforce from 23,000 people.
The BBC claimed that this represented a bigger shift in spending outside of London than when the corporation moved much of its production to Salford a decade ago. The announcement, including moving more television commissions out of the capital, is estimated to mean a cumulative additional expense of £ 700 million outside London over the next six years.
One of the main concerns of the BBC is that it is losing control of the poorest audiences outside the South East of England, which is one of the reasons why it has decided to relaunch BBC Three as a traditional television channel. You also need to convince audiences garnered on Netflix and YouTube that the TV license fee is worth paying, especially when looking for a new financing model to secure your long-term future.
Davie told staff that “the risk to the BBC remains high” due to the challenge from technology companies, but that he had a “strong argument” to bring to the government when it begins negotiations on the amount it can charge for the tariff. license between 2022 and 2027..
As part of the proposals, the BBC Concert Orchestra will move to a still undecided location outside London, while more Proms concerts will take place outside the capital. Some of the changes are more cosmetic: Although shows like Today, Newsnight and PM will increasingly be presented from studios outside the capital, their production crews will remain in London.
The BBC has also promised to hire 100 digital news reporters to boost its regional news coverage, many of them located in cities in the Midlands and the North of England, where local news coverage is seen as failing.
This is despite the fact that a large number of seasoned regional journalists were recently laid off, many long-time TV presenters were removed, and the Inside Out investigative program was terminated. There will also be a large increase in the number of apprentices employed by the BBC, many of them based in the West Midlands.
Some adjustments will be made to regional production, with BBC One viewers in Yorkshire, the North West and North East of England hearing regional voices making continuity announcements, while there will be new local radio stations in peak hours in Bradford, Sunderland and Wolverhampton. . .
