more The biggest cuts in the history of the BBC announced by director general Mark Thompson on 7 December represent a dramatic move towards the neo-liberalisation of the British media.
The projected loss of between 5000-6000 of the corporation's 27,600 staff over the next three years is bad enough.
But the cuts also threaten the whole future of public service broadcasting - high quality programmes that inform, investigate and educate - at a time when they have never been more needed.
Thompson's plan follows the classic neo-liberal approach of weakening public organisation by downsizing and out-sourcing. Thompson's plan follows the classic neo-liberal approach of weakening a public
organisation by down-sizing and outsourcing Through selling off or seeking partners to run parts of the BBC and ruthlessly eliminating jobs he aims to save £320m a year.
A key proposal is to reduce the amount of programme production kept in-house from 75 per cent to 50 per
Independent producers will be guaranteed 25 per cent and the rest will be up for grabs. BBC Sport, New Media and children's TV and radio are To be moved to Manchester, their staff being forced to choose between relocation or redundancy.
Behind Thompson's stated aim of making the BBC more competitive in the digital age is an attempt to safeguard the BBC's Royal Charter which comes up for renewal in 2006 and to keep the licence fee intact.
The government has long been under pressure from BSkyB and other commercial broadcasters to scrap the licence fee altogether a recent government-backed inquiry floated this idea and to force private communications companies on 'an even playing field.
The regulators, meanwhile, propose to relieve ITV companies of many of their cumbersome public service broadcasting obligations such as the provision of non-news regional programmes and regional news and current affairs broadcasts.
Like many public institutions the BBC is far from perfect. Under previous boss Greg Dyke its output was already becoming increasingly commercialised.
Its coverage of the war in Afghanistan and the occupation of Iraq, especially since its conflict with the government OVCI the Hutton inquiry, has been widely criticised by the left for giving Blair an easy ride.
Nevertheless it is the BBC that still symbolises worldwide, and sets the standard for, programming serving all sections of the community as opposed to advertisingdriven, lowest COLUM denominator TV and radio.
As Jeremy Dear, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, wrote in the Guardian:
*We need broadcasters who can take risks, but also provide the information we need as citizens to make decisions about our lives and understand the world without putting shareholders interests first.'
The leaders of the NUJ, Amicus and Bectu have vowed to work together to oppose the effects of the BBC
cuts on staff.
They also need to campaign
for the BBC, as the main
public service broadcaster
provider in Britain and internationally, to continue to be
publicly accountable and to
receive the necessary funding
through the licence fee. much it would cost to make safe, follow-