Enlarge imageBy Adam Pasick, UK media correspondent
LONDON (Reuters) - The BBC plans one of the biggest shake-ups in its 82-year history by axing at least 10 percent of its jobs and trimming 320 million pounds in costs, company sources say.
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.
The BBC, one of the world’s best-known media brands and home to shows like "EastEnders" and "The Office", will cut at least 2,900 of its 28,000 jobs over two to three years, according to an executive in the company.
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 -- after a year when the broadcaster’s relationship with the government has come under extreme strain.
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A judge savaged a BBC report that the government "sexed up" evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, forcing the resignation of Thompson’s predecessor Greg Dyke and Chairman Gavyn Davies.
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.
The government is now reviewing the BBC’s charter, which determines how much money the BBC will receive from the licence fee. The current charter is set to expire in 2006.
About 2,500 of the job cuts will come from professional services such as human resources and marketing, and 400 will come from the factual department that makes the popular nature documentary "Blue Planet," according to a source briefed on the plans.
"Everyone else is going to be required to look at coming up with efficiency savings that will average about 15 percent, though that doesn’t mean 15 percent job cuts," the source said. "They are due to come up with plans by February that will then go to the (BBC board of) governors."
Much of the cost savings will be funnelled into new programming.
Thompson will also detail plans to sell assets and seek partnerships for the broadcaster’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, and to relocate some TV and radio programmes from London to Manchester.
