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BBC to axe staff from online and news operations as part of 2,500 job cuts

Posted: 18/10/07 By: Laura Oliver
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The BBC is to cut over 100 staff from its online, mobile and interactive services as part of wide-ranging reforms that will lead to 2,500 job losses, the corporation announced today.

Between 120 and 130 jobs will be lost across these operations, as part of wider job losses to make up a £2 billion shortfall in the BBC's budget.

A further 475 to 490 posts will be closed in the BBC's TV, radio and new media news departments, as a total of 2,500 roles are axed over the next five to six years.

The corporation said it will create some additional roles, leading to 1,800 net jobs losses overall.

TV, radio and web news operations will be integrated to form multimedia newsroom and programming departments, in the changes announced to staff in speech by Director General Mark Thompson today.

He added that attempts would be made to reduce 'duplication in newsgathering' and production across these different BBC platforms.

As part of the plan - called Delivering Creative Future - Thompson said fewer web pages would be commissioned by the BBC to save costs.

According to The Telegraph, BBC sources have claimed that the budget cuts will result in the website carrying fewer stories and being updated less frequently, as journalists face pressure to write articles across several platforms.

However, investment in the corporation's Future Media & Technology department will increase by 21 per cent to £184 million by 2012/3.

Development of on-demand news and sport services will account for some of this investment, as will ambitions for more personalised online content.

Furthermore, the Media Guardian reported, that the BBC will invest £300 million in a new personalised My BBC Now service and embark on a complete reorganisation of its web pages.

"This [the Delivering Creative Future plan] is about putting online on an equal footing with TV and radio and building on the excellent reputation that it has built already," a spokesperson for the BBC told Journalism.co.uk.

"It's a multimedia world and we're changing in order to address things.

"Interactive and News 24 are utterly central to what we do and we will continue to put them at the heart of our newsroom operation."

Thompson said the changes would create 'a BBC which is fully prepared for digital'.

"It would be easy to say that 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 - that would be just too radical for the BBC," said Thompson.

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

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