More BBC licence fee cuts could cost 32,000 jobs, warns Tony Hall
Some people have such a dedication to the free market they are prepared to consider dismembering long and useful consensuses. We have seen this with the approach of those proposing housing association homes are sold off. The same is true of the current ideological underpinning for the questioning of the role of the BBC. We heard earlier this week about how the link between the Met Office and the BBC has been broken as a consequence of cost cutting. Local and regional news is crucial to both the quality of life actual safety and security of rural areas and any future cuts will put that under threat. Its time we had a proper debate about how this useful public service element of the role of the institution is being affected as part of the current debate on the future of a unique national institution. Much though it might seem to the contrary I am not making a political but a wider social policy point here in terms of rural areas. This article tells us:
The BBC director general, Tony Hall, has warned that further cuts to the corporation’s funding and remit could result in more than 30,000 job losses across the TV industry.
Speaking ahead of a keynote speech by the culture secretary, John Whittingdale, at the Guardian Edinburgh International TV festival that is expected to be critical of the BBC, Hall said that cuts to licence fee income would result in an economic downturn that would stretch beyond the corporation itself.
“New research shows that, because of the boost the BBC provides, if you cut the licence fee by 25% you’d lose about 32,000 jobs across the whole economy,” said Hall. “These aren’t just jobs at the BBC, but across the TV industry – at independent producers, suppliers and studios up and down the country.”
Whittingdale is carrying out a review of the BBC ahead of charter renewal next year, questioning whether the corporation should continue to try to be “all things to all people” or be given a much narrower focus.