BBC Television Centre in 1960
If in 10 years time, you take the Central Line to White City in West London you will still see the iconic BBC TV Centre, after all it is a listed building, but no-one from the BBC will be in it.
After over half a century's service it is to be sold, along with the BBC's other buildings there a few hundred yards up Wood Lane.
Just about every BBC producer in London will by then be based in the newly refurbished Broadcasting House, just north of Oxford Circus in W1, or in the case of programmes like You and Yours, almost 200 miles north in Salford.
This was announced on Thursday 6 October by the BBC's Director General, Mark Thompson as he and the Chair of the BBC Trust, Lord Patten, laid out the results of Delivering Quality First (DQF) which also has to deliver a 20 per cent cut in the Corporation's spending.
While saying that "We can't do this again", and that the Trust had been "merciless" in its scrutiny of his plans, the Director General seemed on good terms with his boss and glad that at long last he could spell out the plans even though they will result in about 2,000 job losses, which he said he regretted but which were "unavoidable".
Those cuts will be implemented immediately, but the proposals for cuts in programme content will be the subject of public consultation.
You can see the detailed proposals on the BBC Trust's website, but here is a quick summary as they affect radio output:
- Radio 1's "content spend" will go down by 2.5%
- Radio 2 by 2.9%
- Radio 3 by 4%
- Radio 4 will have no such cost savings imposed upon it
- Radio 5 Live however is planned to have a cut of 7.5%
There are further cuts in local radio, in the output of the stations serving the nations and in the BBC Asian Network.
In addition to the proposed cuts to Radio 3 an inquiry is taking place into the BBC orchestras, which must fear that at least one of them will be chopped.
Long Wave is doomed and Medium Wave is on borrowed time.
Shortly after the announcements I talked to the BBC chairman, Lord Patten, to try to discover how real the consultation will be.
Next week on Feedback I will be talking to the BBC's director of Audio and Music, Tim Davie, about the proposed cuts, so do let me know what you think of them, and the proposed consultation.
Roger Bolton presents Feedback
- About the the BBC: Delivering Quality First
- BBC Trust: Delivering Quality First
- Listen again to this week's Feedback, produced by Karen Pirie, get in touch with the programme, find out how to join the listener panel or subscribe to the podcast on the Feedback web page.
- Read all of Roger's Feedback blog posts.
- Feedback is on Twitter. Follow @BBCR4Feedback.
