BBC in drama of 21st century media
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Reuters (LONDON) [17 Oct 07] - HAVING angered the Queen and the public, Britain's BBC is set to shed staff with sweeping job cuts this week in the biggest crisis to hit the world-renowned broadcaster since a government clash over Iraq.
The publicly funded corporation, known for its excellence in journalism, has seemingly stumbled from one crisis to another this year, damaging viewers' trust and its credibility.
On Thursday, Director General Mark Thompson is expected to announce plans to cut up to 2,800 positions due to a tighter budget, with news and factual departments to bear the brunt.
Staff and unions have warned the quality of its output will drop. Its Web site, which it says attracts about 35 million users a month from around the world, will also be affected, according to media reports.
The result is plummeting morale and questions over strategy.
To some, the BBC's problems reflect its struggle to adapt to the digital age.
Fearing irrelevance in a time of so many digital channels, the corporation - which is funded by a tax on television-owning households - has launched a host of new channels, radio stations and interactive services to appeal to niche audiences.
Its critics argue that this drive for volume, ratings and viewer involvement has led to its latest problems, including the fiasco with the Queen. It is against this backdrop that the job cuts will come.
Unions say they are expecting up to 2,800 cuts to be announced, with 500-600 coming from the newsroom, after a lower-than-expected licence fee settlement with the government earlier this year.
Mr Thompson has said the corporation faces a 2-billion-pound (S$6-billion) funding shortfall over the 6-year period and must become leaner. But staff and analysts fear the cuts will damage quality, especially in journalism.
'There will be less time for the kind of work the BBC has been so spectacularly successful at, like 'From Our Own Correspondent'", Prof Barnett said.
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I'm sure a lot of people would have noted that I'm a fan of the BBC. I hold the organisation in extremely high regard, and as a professional editor, I regard the BBC as
the standard of journalistic excellence. So these news are of concern to me, even though I'm not a Brit.
To provide one very important reason why the BBC is so good at doing what it does:
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The BBC is funded directly by the license fee, a tax paid by British households that use a TV set.
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Meaning to say that the BBC is not beholden to any commercial interests. I guess I owe a lot of thanks to British taxpayers then.
