http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8545020.stm
I say yes.
They're cutting areas which won't detract from serious programming - £600m is no small amount of money (someone noted that it was larger than BBC2's current annual budget) and more than enough to give their programming a healthy kick up the arse. The main websites that people use are news and sports (and of course iplayer/listen again). Click and Blast are a little redundant on the internet in general, and I admire Thompson's honesty when he says that Channel 4 should be bearing the standard for that. There are quite a lot of sites which simply aren't necessary and it would be nice to see them focussing more on the big hitters in a world which is moving more and more towards online journalism (even though they're dropping the budget there too).
6 Music is a bit of a toss up, it's a digital station which already narrows the listening market - although it is online too - and it's got music that could well be slotted into a combination of Radio 1 and Radio 2. The Asian Network I can see being missed, but there are plenty of other local Asian radio stations which may be just as good. Again, these are both digital channels so they don't have nearly as many listeners as R1-4. If there is public demand then they claim they'll leave off, but to be honest I won't miss them. I get all my music from Last.fm recommendations and Spotify these days.
Staff cuts are inevitable and naturally the unions are going crazy, but then they always do. If there's 600m to throw around, odds are there'll be some jobs opening up too.
(I see there's a thread in lifestyle news too, to comment on the "cut executive pay packets" bit, yes that'd save a bit - it wouldn't come close to £600m in freed up cash)
Discuss!


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