Enlarge imageBy Adam Pasick, UK media correspondent
LONDON (Reuters) - The BBC will axe at least 10 percent of its jobs and trim 320 million pounds in costs amid a review of its governing charter, according to a BBC executive familiar with the plans.
Director General Mark Thompson, who famously described the BBC as "basking in a Jacuzzi of spare public cash" when he ran rival broadcaster Channel 4, will announce the cuts in a presentation to staff on Tuesday.
At least 2,900 of the BBC’s 28,000 jobs will be cut over two to three years, the executive said. Newspapers reported on Tuesday that up to 6,000 jobs could go in the end.
The plan is part of Thompson’s strategy for safeguarding the licence fee -- a tax on television-owning households that brings in some 2.8 billion pounds per year for the BBC -- and preparing the broadcaster for the switchover to digital, multichannel television.
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The job cuts will reverse the growth in the BBC under Thompson’s predecessor Greg Dyke, who along with Chairman Gavyn Davies was forced to resign earlier this year after a damning judicial report on the BBC’s reporting in the lead-up to the Iraq war.
The BBC’s editorial controls took another hit last week, when the corporation’s international TV channel was duped into airing an interview with a fake Dow Chemical spokesman over India’s Bhopal disaster.
Thompson will also detail plans to sell assets and seek partnerships for the BBC’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, and the relocation of some TV and radio programmes from London to Manchester.
