Cuts at the BBC to save £500M, Radio 4 programmes to be axed

[nauticant]

The BBC has announced 550 job cuts in news, nations and TV and radio content as part of its first stage in its plan to save £500m across the corporation over the next two years.

In an email to staff, interim CEO of BBC News, Jonathan Munro, outlined the proposals including ending Radio 4's The World Tonight, and reducing the number of permanent presenters on Today from five to four from September, with a single anchor on Saturdays.
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Several other Radio 4 programmes will also end during the next year - the Midnight News, Money Box Live, AntiSocial, The Law Show and Crossing Continents.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgmqrrlej5o

The real loss for me will be The World Tonight, I've long thought of it as the most classy of the news programmes of the day. Far more considered than the noise of the Today programme or the PM programme. Losing Crossing Continents will also be a shame.

Mid 50s, my radio day:

Newscast or Americast just after 4am
Wake up to Money R5
Switch to Today R4
(Work, but if WFH, R4 stays on until lunchtime)
Driving home PM & 6 o'clock news
Often the 6.30 comedy slot
The Archers
Switch the radio off until bedtime between 10.30 to 11.

I dislike most of the programmes at 9am & I struggle in the afternoons to find anything to act as a good background noise.

I listen to What's Up Docs, Kitchen Cabinet etc on the way home from work. Also the statistics one and science one. Sometimes the Monday ones are a bit highbrow for me to get.

Have they started the Archers Christmas production storyline for this year yet?

The BBC should stop sending reporters for each of its channels to the same event (and presumably camera crew too)
We don’t need different reporters from different channels all to go to eg the Olympic Games.

And ditch Ru Paul’s Drag Race and Mrs Brown’s Boys.

And we don’t need to eg send a crew to stand outside Buck Palace to tell us that the king is ill, or whatever. They can tell us that from the studio. I
Applies to any on site reporting, I’m not anti the RF!

Have you noticed the tendency of Radio 4 ending long-running programmes and replacing them with something in the same subject matter space but in a podcast-type format with a couple of young presenters?

Terrible decision about You and Yours! We really NEED programmes like it.

comedy? I’ve never so much as tittered at any radio 4 so called comedy.

I wonder what back office roles they’re cutting, if they’re cutting services? I hope non jobs like diversity and wellbeing are being removed.

I'll miss The World Tonight and You and Yours.

Justin Webb and Winifred Robinson feel almost like family.
You and Yours is great as it's undemanding listening but you pick up things you need to know from it.

Not yet, but we all know what it will be!

Yes, they definitely appear to be targeting a younger audience but the problem is, so is everyone else and then that begs the question, what do all the older people listen to now, you know, those loyal listeners who’ve been paying their TV licence fee for decades?

Not yet, it's only October.

Agreed. It really isn't funny in general.

A decade ago I could count on there being 3 or more comedy programmes in the half six slot worth listening to. Now it's usually 1, and that's the one on Friday which I listen to mostly out of habit. The occasional comedy programme worth listening to might appear in the slot on other days but I'm so out of the habit that I rarely catch them.

Cabin Pressure was, and still is, BRILLIANT!

Radio 4Extra to close. That is a shame.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqx2v800nnr2o

It is a great shame. I don't listen to Radio 4 Extra on my radio but I do check the schedule most days for interesting archive content and I listen to it from iplayer. If they carry on making those programmes available that way I'll be relieved. I really do feel the BBC is missing a trick here. They have an enormous archive of wonderful stuff. I would be prepared to pay a subscription to get access to it. Instead I find myself trawling YouTube or other sites which have BBC content, which means the BBC get no money from my listening at all.

There is a small silver lining in the cuts. Ending BBC 3 means less repeats of the foul mouthed disgrace that is Mrs Brown's Boys, and less fees for the tax dodging members of the cast.

I was angry when I heard about You & Yours, I'm very close to being on the verge of tears about R4Extra. For those of us whose worlds are getting smaller and who don't have internet access, that's it - potentially unbearable stuff or silence. Oh well, we'll not be around for much longer so that'll not matter 🙄

I wonder how many listeners to Radio 1 use a radio, could they not take that off the air when their demographic is much more likely to be using an internet enabled device?

very disappointed to loose radio 4 extra
how could they!

I was angry when I heard about You & Yours
I've been listening to You & Yours for as long as I can remember. It's one of those programmes that is the core of Radio 4 as far as I'm concerned.
Easy to listen to as background noise but informative. Winifred Robinson is excellent- she sounds friendly, approachable and enthusiastic.

Heartbroken at the closing down of Radio 4 Extra, it's about the only BBC stuff I access, and helps me through the night through my bouts of insomnia.

BBC is continuing to slough off the tried and tested favourites in its quest to attract younger listeners (which it will never do) by doing this is alienating all its long standing llisteners and viewers. It's been doing this for years and still can't figure out why the policy isn't working.

Madness is making the same mistakes but expecting a different outcome. The BBC directs itself into deeper irrelevance every year.

Surely 4 Extra is cheap to run?

Every time its budget is threatened, the BBC always threatens to close things people care about rather than its swollen beuracracy.... So predictable

4 extra is going as well? Bloody nora what next?