17 journalism posts to go at BBC Radio 1

Part of the cuts announced by the BBC on Tuesday include 17 positions at Radio 1.

In addition, nine reporter posts at 5 Live will go, whilst Radio 1 and 1Xtra will no longer have their own dedicated news services, except at breakfast.

BBC News announced the loss of 140 posts altogether, which will be cut by the end of April 2013. They are part of the cost-cutting Delivering Quality First Programme, designed to generate 20 per cent savings over five years with the loss of 2,000 jobs across the BBC.

At BBC Radio 4, three or four current affairs pots will go, along with three reporters and two producers, plus annual funding will be cut by £500,000.

BBC Asian Network is to lose 15 posts and have its funding cut in half. News will move from Leicester to London with fewer bulletins but extra multi-media jobs will be created long term. Two general “BBC Radio News” posts will also go in the next 12 months, with more expected at a later date.

However, one new 5 Live reporter job will be created at Media City UK, along with four new reporter roles based in Newcastle, Birmingham, Cambridge and Plymouth.

Here is Helen Boaden’s email to all staff yesterday:

Today we are announcing further details of the BBC News Group’s Delivering Quality First proposals in Network News for Year 1, 2013/14, which regrettably will result in the closure of around 140 posts by April next year. We are currently working through our savings plan for future years and we will come back to you at a later date with more detail, along with our final proposals for Local Radio and Regional Current Affairs and the Asian Network, once the Trust has published its conclusions.

As you know, we announced our overall DQF proposals in a speech I gave last October. Today each of your line managers and editors will give you an update on the impact for your team, including for some areas, changes to the way we’ll be organised in W1 as well as post closures. I know many of you will have been working or will be off shift so may be unable to go to your team briefings. We have put all the departmental documents outlining our proposals on the News Group intranet site today. We will begin consulting with the Trade Unions next week. Please feel free to discuss these plans with your line manager too.

I don’t pretend that these changes will be easy or painless for individuals or teams. As we have always done, we will work extremely hard to avoid any compulsory redundancies though as the BBC gets smaller, we cannot guarantee complete success in this area.

As public service broadcasters we know that we have to make these changes in a way which preserves our reputation, our values and our unique relationship of trust with our audiences. That’s a great responsibility but also a great privilege. And even though we need to make savings of nearly £70 million by 2016/17, it’s important to remember that we still have around £400 million pounds a year to spend on the best journalism in the world.

Best wishes,

Helen