London: The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), is set to cut hundreds of jobs, including those in its news division next week, the Financial Times reported.
The move comes ahead of talks with ministers over future funding, it has been reported.
The BBC has a staff strength of over 20,000 staff and is expected to cut about a tenth of its costs resulting in 2,000 job losses. The news division, which employs a quarter of the staff, is set to be the first to reveal its plan next week.
Cuts in the department that manages television, websites, radio, and apps
across the regions are expected to lead to a large number of job losses.
The report says that the announcement is expected to affect specific radio shows. The cuts could be noticeable to BBC viewers and listeners, sources said, sources told Financial Times.
Other teams, such as content, can more easily cut costs from non-staff areas, insiders said..
The new BBC director-general Matt Brittin had warned of ‘hard and unpopular choices’ for a financially stable future, in an interview last month.
Several cost-cutting measures, including reducing expenditure on travel, recruitment, management consultancies, conferences, awards, and events have already been put in place by the public service broadcaster, as reported by NDTV.
In April this year, the BBC had first announced its plans to cut up to 2,000 jobs to save 10 per cent of its annual budget of 500 million pounds ($677 million) – over the next two years.
“I know this creates real uncertainty, but we wanted to be open about the challenge,” interim Director-General Rhodri Talfan Davies had said in a staff email.
Job cuts have been announced across sectors as a cost-reduction measure. These include Meta, Ikea, Starbucks and Cloudflare.