The BBC has announced it is axing 450 jobs in its English regional TV news and current affairs department, as well as local radio and online news.
It will also replace Inside Out with a new investigative journalism programme, which will have six regional editions instead of the previous 11. It will be produced in London, Newcastle, Leeds, Birmingham, Bristol and Norwich.
The cuts are expected to save £25 million by April 2022. The BBC has previously said it must save £125 million this year.
The proposed job cuts are on top of the 450 redundancies previously announced – which were then put on hold – by BBC News.
Regional TV and online news teams will be merged, and there will no longer be an online editorial hub in Birmingham.
Helen Thomas, the director of BBC England, said the BBC’s local and regional services were created more than 50 years ago, and “have changed very little and need significant reinvention”.
“That has meant taking some difficult decisions,” Thomas added. “We are in the age of the Facebook community group and the WhatsApp neighbourhood chat. We must adapt to better reflect how people live their lives, how they get their news and what content they want.
“We’re going to modernise our offer to audiences in England by making digital a central part of everything we do. We’ll take forward lessons from Covid-19 that will make us more agile and more in touch with communities while also ensuring we’re as efficient as we can be.”
