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BBC Cuts

£800m savings by centenary (October 2018)

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IE
iee_reith
With the BBC needing to make savings of £800m by 2022, Broadcast today reveals a number of content related cuts that may need to happen. Everything from local radio to BBC Four.

Just wondered - what would you cut? And why?
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
We don't all have subscriptions to Broadcast, I presume you do so could you share the text content please?
:-(
A former member
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2018/efficiency-review

Quote:

An efficiency review published today finds the BBC has delivered a third of the £800 million of savings needed by 2021/22, but warns it has become increasingly difficult to make more savings without further impacting services.
The report shows how cutting property and senior manager costs, renegotiating major contracts and simplifying the BBC have helped ensure that 94% of the BBC’s controllable budget was on content and delivery this year - with just 5.7% going on general support activities.

A separate, independent, report by Ernst & Young also finds that the BBC is among the most efficient 25% regulated and non-profit organisations in the UK, as well as the most efficient 25% international telecommunications and media companies.

Over the last Charter, the BBC made £1.6billion in annual savings. Most savings came from improving efficiency, and spending on content has been protected wherever possible. This focus on creativity meant that in 2017/18, 65% of UK adults think the BBC is effective at providing content/services that demonstrate a high standard of creativity.

However, there has already had to be some compromises including the loss of sports rights and cuts to daytime programming, and with hundreds of millions of pounds of savings still required over the coming years the report warns that tough decisions will have to be made.

Anne Bulford, Deputy Director-General, says: “This report demonstrates the hard work that has gone into achieving our financial goals. Since my last report on BBC efficiency, in November 2014, we have continued to deliver on our savings programme, bringing overheads down further to industry-leading levels - just 5.7% of our total costs.

“While we have sought to protect spending on content wherever we can, savings cannot simply come from overheads. It’s not possible to make savings on this scale without also making changes to services, which some audiences will notice. Simply put, we cannot reduce our cost base by a fifth and not see impact in our content.

“As this new Charter began the Director-General set out a creative vision to mobilise the BBC behind an ambitious goal - to reinvent public service broadcasting for a new generation. At the same time, the BBC faces significant financial challenges; from competition for talent and rights, and from rising audience expectations. Reinventing the BBC at a time of unprecedented pressure will require difficult choices to be made. We have made a strong start but there is still much to do.”

The BBC’s report reveals:

More than 94% of the BBCs controllable spend this year was on content and delivery, with just 5.7% on running the organisation
The annual property bill has been brought down by around £90 million since 2011/12. This is £35 million more than the target across this period. By 2020 the BBC is expected to have reduced its UK property estate by more than 20% since 2014
The cost of the BBC’s workforce fell by 6% in real terms from 2010-11 to 2015-16, saving £59m in real terms
The number of senior managers has been cut in half since 2009/10, with the cost reduced by £38 million. The BBC is also on target for 2.3% of employees to be apprentices or trainees by the end of 2019
Ernst & Young have benchmarked the BBC’s overheads and concluded that the BBC is within the most efficient 25% of both regulated and non-profit organisations in the UK as well as the most efficient 25% of international telecommunications and media companies. This makes the BBC better than most of government and media companies.

Property is a key strand of the BBC’s efficiency plan, and over 2017/18 the BBC moved out of several London buildings including Grafton House, Brock House, Great Portland Street and Euston Square, while BBC Monitoring also relocated from Caversham to London’s Broadcasting House.

During 2017/18, the number of senior managers has also reduced by a further 39 from the prior year bringing the total down to 270 - a reduction of 56% compared to March 2010.

The Compete or Compare strategy, which was launched in July 2014, has now tested 94% of the BBC cost base by means of competition or cost comparison/benchmarking. Under the new Charter virtually all drama, comedy, entertainment and factual programmes are to be put out to competition by 2027. In the past year Sports Personality of the Year, Bargain Hunt and the Proms coverage have all been put out to tender.

The BBC must also secure competition for at least 60% of relevant radio programming by the end of 2022. The BBC is making good progress in reaching this milestone, involving significant organisational change to deliver. Plans to compete titles such as Radio 1’s Annie Mac and Dance Anthems, Radio 2’s Vanessa Feltz, and 5live’s The Danny Baker Show have also been announced.
MI
Mike516
With the BBC needing to make savings of £800m by 2022, Broadcast today reveals a number of content related cuts that may need to happen. Everything from local radio to BBC Four.

Just wondered - what would you cut? And why?

At a guess, it will be (name of programme/service) that (username) doesn't personally like that should be axed.


I would look at continuing to phase out AM radio and work with platform operators to phase out SD broadcasts, reducing duplication of services in different formats.
KE
kernow
a516 posted:
With the BBC needing to make savings of £800m by 2022, Broadcast today reveals a number of content related cuts that may need to happen. Everything from local radio to BBC Four.

Just wondered - what would you cut? And why?

At a guess, it will be (name of programme/service) that (username) doesn't personally like that should be axed.


I would look at continuing to phase out AM radio and work with platform operators to phase out SD broadcasts, reducing duplication of services in different formats.



The problem with trying to phase out SD broadcasts is that a lot of people have still got set top boxes, TVs, equipment, etc. which can't receive HD channels.

If you wanted everyone to have HD equipment, you would have to provide replacement equipment (or appropriate compensation) for everyone with SD equipment, and for things like freeview, that potentially affects thousands of properties, which could cost millions, if free replacements were offered, which someone would have to pay for.
BR
Brekkie
a516 posted:
With the BBC needing to make savings of £800m by 2022, Broadcast today reveals a number of content related cuts that may need to happen. Everything from local radio to BBC Four.

Just wondered - what would you cut? And why?

At a guess, it will be (name of programme/service) that (username) doesn't personally like that should be axed.


I would look at continuing to phase out AM radio and work with platform operators to phase out SD broadcasts, reducing duplication of services in different formats.



The problem with trying to phase out SD broadcasts is that a lot of people have still got set top boxes, TVs, equipment, etc. which can't receive HD channels.

If you wanted everyone to have HD equipment, you would have to provide replacement equipment (or appropriate compensation) for everyone with SD equipment, and for things like freeview, that potentially affects thousands of properties, which could cost millions, if free replacements were offered, which someone would have to pay for.

The viewer. It really is overdue - last stat I saw had HD sets at around 70%, and that was a good couple of years ago.

In the days when phones get upgraded practically annually asking viewers to upgrade TV equipment once a decade isn't that unreasonable.
LH
lhx1985
If you wanted everyone to have HD equipment, you would have to provide replacement equipment (or appropriate compensation) for everyone with SD equipment...


I do not recall being provided with compensation or replacement when my anologue equipment were rendered obsolete. The precident is already set and they would surely only provide 'switchover assistance' to vulnerable groups.

They would just have to repeat the exercise of dishing out Freeview HD boxes to those groups.

Would probably pay for itself in a few years. Same could probably be said if Sky took it upon themselves to update SD subscribers equipment.
Last edited by lhx1985 on 18 October 2018 2:48pm
Stuart, Mike516 and Brekkie gave kudos
JK
JKDerry
My ideas of cuts and changes to the BBC would be:

BBC One, BBC Two to be maintained with money used from closure of channels transferred here
BBC Four to be closed with all their new content moved to BBC Two
CBBC and Cbeebies to share one unified channel, with the remaining content transferred to online service like BBC Three
BBC Parliament to move online
BBC News Channel to be maintained to offer an alternative to Sky News etc
BBC 5 Sports Extra to be closed, with more online material for 5 Live and 5 Live Sport
BBC 1 Extra and BBC Radio 4 Extra to be moved online
BBC Radio Orkney and Radio Shetland to be closed - with smaller opt outs on BBC Radio Scotland provided for these regions
A review should be undertaken to see the viability of many of the English local BBC radio stations, and if necessary some will be closed or merged
BBC Radio Foyle in Londonderry should be reviewed on its viability too
Salaries of top presenters to be capped, set by an independent watchdog
Salaries of management to be capped, set by an independent watchdog
Levels of management to be reduced, and staffing levels to be cut back on those parts of the BBC where large staff levels are not needed anymore
BBC Online content to be reviewed, trimming back the huge vast BBC online presence, which is to costly to maintain on a whole

Just a few suggestions, I know many would not agree, but they are only ideas
NG
noggin Founding member
£800m across 3 years = £266m/year

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/reports/pdf/bbc_annualreport_201718.pdf

Annual costs in 2017:

Total cost of BBC Four = £67m (content cost £50.5m)
Total cost of CBBC = £96.6m (content cost £69.5m)
Total cost of CBeebies = £41.4m (content cost £28.7m)
Total cost of BBC News Channel = £64.9m (content cost £47.8m)

Total cost of BBC Local Radio = £151.1m (content cost £112.9m)

That gives you an idea of the scale of savings that need to be made and what the BBC currently spends in certain areas.
CH
chris
We don't all have subscriptions to Broadcast, I presume you do so could you share the text content please?


Don’t want to be the sourpuss, but perhaps we should pay for journalism rather than posting it on here for free?
AN
Andrew Founding member
Whatever is cut it shouldn’t be on services which nobody else does, or if someone else does do it it much inferior.

Like previous cuts to BBC Local Radio, despite there being literally no alternative

Previous cuts to Radio One Newsbeat, again there are no alternatives anywhere near.

Yet they’ll probably cut unique services and pump money into something ridiculously mainstream that everyone does. Didn’t money from BBC Three go towards BBC One prime time?
AN
Andrew Founding member

BBC Online content to be reviewed, trimming back the huge vast BBC online presence, which is to costly to maintain on a whole

Just a few suggestions, I know many would not agree, but they are only ideas

What huge presence? Besides News, Sport, Weather, most of the site is just links to the iPlayer these days. You hardly ever get proper programme related pages.

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