BBC to cut 550 jobs as it confronts diminishing licence fee returns

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The BBC has announced that it will cut 550 jobs as part of an effort to save up to £500m in the next three years. BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight will be axed after 56 years on air, production teams for Newsnight and Laura Kuennsberg’s show will also be merged, while it is expected that up to 400 hours of audio content will be lost. As many as 2,000 positions are under threat. Matt Brittin, the BBC’s new director-general, has indicated that he sees digital platforms as the main growth area for the corporation. He is likely to bear the brunt of anger, but the issue is the licence fee. Annual revenue from the fee is down £1.3bn in real terms over the past decade.