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News & Current Events Apr 15, 2026 at 6:53 PM

BBC to cut up to 2,000 jobs in biggest downsize in 15 years

Posted by kharkovchanin

BBC to cut up to 2,000 jobs in biggest downsize in 15 years
the Guardian
BBC to cut up to 2,000 jobs in biggest downsize in 15 years
Announcement comes before Matt Brittin replaces Tim Davie as director general next month
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AudibleNod Apr 15, 2026 +288
I could see why. They were scooped by The Guardian on their own story.
288
KimJongFunk Apr 15, 2026 +44
God damn (I feel secondary pain from that)
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Creepy_Accountant946 Apr 16, 2026 +11
To be fair The person who breaks these kind of news got fired
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KimJongFunk Apr 15, 2026 +119
> The licence fee increased in line with inflation on 1 April, from £174.50 to £180 annually. The corporation made £3.8bn from the collection of the licence fee last year from 23.8 million households, plus a further £2bn from commercial activities and grants. > However, licence fee paying households decreased by 300,000 year-on-year amid an increase in evasion and a rise in audiences only watching rival digital platforms, such as Netflix and Disney. The licence fee is one of the weirder parts of the model. Nearly impossible to enforce on a large scale.
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mikolv2 Apr 15, 2026 +86
Their attempt at enforcing the licence fee is probably the weirder part. Sending threatening letters to people to scare them into paying is not a great business model. I don't watch tv/bbc content. I haven't for good 15 years yet without fail I get a letter every month telling me to pay for a licence or I'll face a £1000 fine and a visit to my home address has been authorised
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bbbbbbbbbblah Apr 15, 2026 +45
bbctvlicence dot com (sic) is one person’s decades long chronicle of the letters that they have received, and they are as you describe. They happen to have a letter allegedly from the 1970s and it is so politely worded that it makes you want to buy a licence regardless of whether you need one or not. I’ve always found it odd that TV Licensing is so threatening when there are other government agencies, for whom co-operation is actually mandatory, who are much nicer. I owed HMRC a small amount of money and they were very pleasant in their letters. The DVLA are fine too.
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nsm1 Apr 15, 2026 +16
Japan has a similar problem with the NHK https://japantoday.com/category/features/opinions/japan-nhk-fees-in-2025-harassment-disguised-as-public-service
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FeastForCows Apr 16, 2026 +7
In Germany they used to send people to your home to check how many TVs and radios you have, because at some point the fee was dependent on how many devices you had. Now they changed it and it doesn't matter how many you have or if you have any at all.
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itsthehappyman Apr 15, 2026 +2
I get the same ones every month, complete waste of time and money, and I don't watch the BBC
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Pic889 Apr 15, 2026 +9
Even if they enforce it with 100% success, there is the inconvenient fact that too many people don't watch broadcast TV these days: they have so many choices on YouTube, Netflix, and Disney+ that they can't be bothered to watch a horrible 1080p terrestrial broadcast with a bitrate lower than an adult-oriented "tube" website. Basically, the BBC's "TV license" has gone from a necessity to yet another streaming subscription among the many (BBC iPlayer).
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SoftlyGyrating Apr 15, 2026 +32
It's also counterproductive IMO. The lack of advertising (which necessitates the license fee) is supposedly to keep the BBC impartial, but it just makes it so reliant on government funding that it ends up doing the opposite. I really couldn't care less if Lego gets more airtime than Playmobil, but when the BBC is pressured into accepting a [Tory mega-donor as chairman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Sharp_\(banker\)) and a [former Tory politician as Director General](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Davie), that pisses me off.
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appletinicyclone Apr 16, 2026 +7
The issue was the Tory infiltration into its senior management Back when it was the Iraq war years it held the government to account and got flack from the Blair labour government because of it
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Say_no_to_doritos Apr 15, 2026 +2
It works really well for CBC though
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weirdowerdo Apr 15, 2026 +8
Yeah, Sweden just moved over to a Public Service Fee (Tax) that is taken on your income tax. At most 1% for income below 118 427 SEK/Year (Extremely low income). Or at most 1 184 SEK on incomes above that a year so essentially for a regular person its 99 SEK/Month so its cheaper than a netflix subscription at this point which costs 109 SEK/month.
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Soylentee Apr 16, 2026 +3
Should just be funded directly from the government tbh as a national broadcaster, skips the entire tv license issue.
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bi0hazard6 Apr 15, 2026 +3
That's really weird. I'm wondering why don't they collect the fees through income tax or tv provider?
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walale12 Apr 16, 2026 +1
It's genuinely nonsensical. They could easily just make it so you cannot access live TV or BBC iPlayer without a TV Licence, rather than all this threatening enforcement BS.
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SearchTimely2799 Apr 16, 2026 -6
Brits need a license to watch TV? It's a flat-screen, not a car. I'm confused.
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sblahful Apr 16, 2026 +3
Yeah, it's an old fashioned way of raising money to pay for things. You used to need a licence to own a dog too until the 80s IIRC. The licence fee paid for the operating cost of the thing you used. In this case, transmission equipment and producing the programmes. It was conceived before private TV channels existed, and before TV existed it was the same for owning a radio. Unlike a driving licence, it's not to say you're capable of owning one, but is instead more like a vehicle tax. But as companies can't collect tax, a licence was used instead. This means the money goes directly to the BBC, but via the government first. This makes the finding route independent, though in practice there are other levers of pressure that the UK government can apply.
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TomfromLondon Apr 16, 2026 +4
No we don't.
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sblahful Apr 16, 2026 +4
Yes, we do. If you're watching any live TV on any channel, you need a TV licence. It doesn't matter if you don't watch anything on the BBC, the licence fee also pays for the broadcast system that lets you watch any channel. Ditto if you watch live TV on your laptop etc, as licence fee money paid for setting up the broadband network in the UK
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TomfromLondon Apr 16, 2026 +2
Yes don't "need" a licence, you need one for certain things, I don't watch live tv or the BBC, so I don't need one.
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satisfiedfools Apr 15, 2026 +157
On a serious note, it's just depressing seeing these headlines everywhere. Seems big organisations across the board are cutting stuff. Hiring freezes. Doesn't give you much hope for the future.
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[deleted] Apr 15, 2026 +70
[deleted]
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mr_impastabowl Apr 15, 2026 +9
What business are you in?
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Zeforas Apr 16, 2026 -12
No offence, but ONLY 200 job application in 7 months? It's a little more than 1 per day. It may seems annoying, but you need to pump that number to 10 a days. Today's market is literaly all this is about, spamming your job application everywhere. Because like you said, most are going in the trash, so may as well annoy the hell out of everyone by putting it everywhere. Unless you're working on a job that nobody want to do/always lacking in your country, but if that was the case you would be alerdy hired.
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Indie89 Apr 16, 2026 +3
I applied to 1200 in six months and I was still struggling, but got something eventually, but yeah that's the number you need to be aiming for
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mrreiner Apr 16, 2026 +15
My guess is you’re still relatively quite young? I’ve encountered 4-5 of these global downturns since the early 80s. They come and go. The big difference is that since the last one (2008) social media and online news have become so much more popular, much cheaper to produce content for and on top of that negative reporting generates more clicks than any other news. 20 years ago people outside of the UK wouldn’t have heard of this news. Same for every other mass job loss outside your country. Media space was costly and thus much more restrictive.
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TheWhiteManticore Apr 15, 2026 -14
WW3 is just on the horizon, it seems now inevitable
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FeastForCows Apr 16, 2026 +11
Stop your ridiculous fearmongering and get off social media.
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DacStreetsDacAlright Apr 15, 2026 +51
Literally every major company is downsizing by a few thousand places. You can't tell me they're all being replaced by AI.
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FillFrontFloor Apr 15, 2026 +17
Not everything should be made just to make money. Some services do provide  benefit a d well being to the people that pay taxes. The huge problem is that political parties and politicians are practically allowed to "own" the government paid assets? Should be decided by the people I feel.
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Wh1sk3yS0ur Apr 15, 2026 +9
Have you looked at the economic indicators and macro-events? It’s not AI
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Pic889 Apr 15, 2026 +3
The BBC is the weirdest EBU broadcaster out there: It's theoretically a public service, but at the same time, it charges a rather steep £15/month subscription (putting it in the same league as Netflix) and paying for it is optional (you only need to have a "TV license" if you watch broadcast TV or live sports streaming). In the past, everyone watched broadcast TV, so that wasn't an issue, but nowadays many people are happy with Netflix, Disney+, and YouTube. So yeah, I am not surprised their funding is slowly but steadily drying up. BBC management has to decide whether they are a premium subscription service (charging Netflix prices) or a public service.
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low_slearner Apr 15, 2026 +1
The "subscription" is really good value when you consider it also pays for all of the non-TV stuff: radio, news & sports coverage, kids educational content, etc, etc. I agree that the conditions under which you have to pay it are weird. They haven't moved Edith the times, and they ought to. Hopefully the next charter renewal in a couple of years will address that. And for what it's worth, you need a license if you watch any iPlayer content - not just live sports coverage.
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PurpleSailor Apr 16, 2026 +6
Not surprising and guessing that ad revenue fell when they pay walled the US.
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RadikulRAM Apr 16, 2026 +1
The BBC's ad revenue?
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greenking2000 Apr 16, 2026 +2
Yeah they run ads on the international service now
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clashrendar Apr 15, 2026 +3
Did Paramount buy them too?
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Maureen_Johma Apr 15, 2026 -6
That’s what happens when you lose Top Gear
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TelecomPedestal Apr 15, 2026 -11
Oi, betta increase the price of the TV loicense
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[deleted] Apr 15, 2026 -14
[removed]
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