BBC World Service plans 382 post closures

Ella Sagar

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September 29, 2022

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1 minute

In brief: The BBC World Service has outlined plans to “accelerate” its move to digital.

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Ella Sagar Ella Sagar is a reporter for The Media Leader and leads our audio and out-of-home coverage. She joined in September 2021 and has a gold standard NCTJ. She previously wrote for the South West Londoner, Ealing Times, and The Hillingdon Times. At the University of Leeds, she received a First Class Honours Degree in French and Spanish with distinction in speaking and during her time there regularly presented radio shows on Leeds Student Radio, wrote for the student paper The Gryphon and was editor of Her Campus Leeds.

The BBC World Service has outlined plans to “accelerate” its move to digital.

The proposals will see seven more language services moving to digital only, meaning nearly half of the 41 language services offered by the BBC World Service will only be available via digital.

While the BBC World Service will continue to operate in all the languages and countries where it is currently present, the plan includes a net total of around 382 post closures, some TV and radio programmes will stop as well as BBC Arabic radio and BBC Persian radio.

The service currently reaches 148 million people weekly, and the digital share of World Service Languages reach has gone from 19% to 43% since 2018.

The BBC said in a post on its website that as a result of high inflation, soaring costs, and a cash-flat Licence Fee settlement , the BBC’s international services needed to make a saving of £28.5m, as part of the wider £500m of annual savings and reinvestment to make the BBC digital-led.