Government accused of damaging Britain's reputation overseas by reducing funding by 16%
The government was accused of damaging Britain's reputation overseas as the BBC said cuts to the World Service mean it will lose at least 30 million listeners.
Peter Horrocks, the BBC's global news director responsible for implementing the cuts, which will see 650 jobs lost, said they risked damaging the World Service's reputation and the positive benefits it brought to Britain. People who listened to the World Service were likely to trade with Britain, Horrocks added. "We made that case to ministers. We explained in great detail the impact of the decision," he said.
Politicians from all sides condemned the cutbacks and trade union officials said they would ballot for strike action if the job losses involved compulsory redundancies, while also criticising BBC management for not fighting harder to protect the World Service from government cuts.
In the Commons today William Hague, the foreign secretary, was forced to defend the government's decision to cut the World Service's budget after being condemned by Labour MPs. He blamed the BBC pension deficit and Foreign Office spending cuts required by the "vast public deficit inherited from the previous government".
The BBC is being forced to implement the cuts after the World Service's funding from the Foreign Office was reduced by 16% in the government's comprehensive spending review in October.
From 2014 the World Service is to be paid for from the licence fee, rather than by direct Foreign Office grant, and the BBC has said it intends to reverse some of the cuts from that point.
Programmes to be axed from the World Service's main English language radio station include Something Understood, Europe Today, World Of Music, Letter From, and Crossing Continents.
The English language service will have a new schedule focusing on news output, with four daily programmes including BBC World Today and BBC World Have Your Say and a new morning show for Africa.
World Service radio broadcasts to western Europe ? including south-east England ? Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union, Turkey, India and China will be among the casualties as the BBC axes 650 jobs and looks to save �46m a year, 20% of the World Service's �253m annual budget.
Foreign language broadcasting to Serbia, Macedonia, Albania, the Caribbean and in Portuguese for Africa are also closing. Shortwave broadcasts in Hindi, Mandarin and Swahili will cease.
Horrocks, briefing staff about the cuts, described it as an "enormous shift" for the World Service, with more than 25% of its employees facing losing their jobs and 480 posts to go over the next 12 months.
An estimated 68 jobs will go at the World Service's English-language service. Overseas, the brunt of the cuts will be borne by the Arabic and Russian services, with the latter set to lose 45 posts, about half of its staff.
Horrocks told staff BBC management estimated that the cuts would result in the World Service losing more than 30 million listeners out of its global audience of 180 million. "Today is an extremely tough day for all of us but I assure you the World Service will get through this and continue to deliver brilliantly for our audiences. The task that we have is too important to fail," he added.
Jeremy Dear, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, said there was "shock" at the scale of the measures but the BBC should have fought harder to avoid the cuts.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jan/26/world-service-cuts-will-cost-listeners
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