BBC Radio schedules hit by strikes again

Many BBC radio programmes have again been affected by strike action by journalists a the corporation today.

Members of the NUJ walked out at midnight and from tomorrow will also begin a ‘work to rule’ over plans for compulsory redundancies in the World Service and BBC Monitoring.

The industrial action comes just a fortnight after the last strike, on July 15th, over the same issue.

Radio 4’s The World At One today is cancelled, while ahead of that a repeat of You And Yours will be broadcast instead of the billed edition. This morning’s Today programme was cut to just two hours, running 7am-9am. Tonight’s PM programme has been replaced with a documentary about the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

In a statement, the BBC said: “We are disappointed that the NUJ has gone ahead with today’s strike and apologise to our audience for any disruption to services. Industrial action does not alter the fact that the BBC is faced with a number of potential compulsory redundancies following significant cuts to the central Government grants that support the World Service and BBC Monitoring. We will continue with our efforts to reduce the need for compulsory redundancies, however, the number of posts that we are having to close means that unfortunately it is likely to be impossible for us to avoid some compulsory redundancies.”