lucia's: BBC local radio to be reprieved in Lord Patten's Oxford speech

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

BBC local radio to be reprieved in Lord Patten's Oxford speech

BBC Trust chairman expected to ask director general to mitigate �15m cuts that would have led to the loss of 280 jobs

Lord Patten is poised to announce a financial reprieve for the BBC's 40 English local radio stations, which are facing �15m of cuts that would have prompted changes including the merger of neighbouring stations' off-peak programmes.

The chairman of the BBC Trust will address the Oxford Media Convention on Wednesday, and he is expected to ask Mark Thompson, the director general, to find money to mitigate cuts that would have led to the loss of 280 jobs.

The BBC Trust is also preparing to publish the results of its public consultation into Thompson's "Delivering Quality First" cuts plan, with the local radio proposals by the far the most controversial aspect of the �700m savings package.

Patten will also ask Thompson to look again at other proposed cuts to regional TV programmes. BBC1's regional current affairs programme, Inside Out, was facing the loss of 40% of its �5m annual budget, or 40 of its 100-strong staff.

MPs and senior church leaders joined the public in making complaints about mooted cuts that would have slashed the budgets of stations such as BBC Radio Derby, Radio Merseyside and Radio Tees by 20%.

To make the savings ? affecting just BBC local radio in England ? stations would have to merge afternoon programmes, with, for example, Radio Herefordshire sharing the same output as Radio Stoke 100 miles to the north between 1pm and 4pm.

Previously separate home and away football commentaries would have been shared, while a single "Radio England" show would have gone out overnight.

BBC local radio insiders gave the news a cautious welcome. One BBC source said that any reversal of the planned cuts would be welcome but added that employees would want to see the detail. "If they only knock �1m or �2m off the savings target then it will only be scratching the surface. If they were talking about �5m coming back [leaving cuts of �10m] then you would start to see that making a real difference."

The source added: "All eyes will be on what they want us to save. Is it the lunchtime show, is it the quality of the journalism, or is it a bit of both?"

Despite the complaints, senior BBC executives are privately satisfied at the outcome ? because it will mean that the bulk of the DQF savings proposals will have been agreed with only minimal opposition.

The package was expected to lead to the loss of 2,000 jobs across the corporation, including 800 posts from BBC News ? and has already led to the BBC cutting back on its TV coverage of Formula One as it saves money on sports rights.

The BBC launched the DQF initiative following October 2010's licence fee settlement, which led to the corporation agreeing to see the television levy frozen at �145.50 until 2017 as well as taking on extra funding responsibilities including the World Service.

BBC local radio stations in England have a collective average weekly audience of 7.25 million listeners, according to the latest official Rajar audience measurement figures for the third quarter of 2011.

Their total audience was up from 6.96 million a year earlier but about a million listeners down from its weekly reach of 8.26 million a decade ago.

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Dan Sabbagh

John Plunkett