Pages from CEEFAX

The BBC has announced 550 job cuts in news, nations and TV and radio content as part of its first stage in its plan to save £500m across the corporation over the next two years.  

In an email to staff, interim CEO of BBC News, Jonathan Munro, outlined the proposals including merging Radio 4's The World Tonight with the Today and PM and Yesterday in Parliament programmes to create World PM Tonight Today in Parliament Yesterday.  The number of Today presenters will be reduced from 5 to 4.  In the medium term the BBC will be looking to merge Anna Foster with Emma Barnett to create Tamara Bennett-Foreman and Justin Webb and Nick Robinson will be merged to form Justin B. Robinson-Beckwin

BBC One's Breakfast will no longer be shown on Sunday morning from September and the production teams making Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg and Newsnight will merge to form Songs of Prasie for Breakfast Newsnight.

Munro said the proposals announced on Wednesday include 200 job losses in the news division resulting in savings of £25m.  Some TV production at weekends will be shared across the News Channel and BBC One bulletins and there will be a review of the chief news presenter roles to see who is the least smug and pompous.

Other proposals in the announcement include:

A reduction of 100-150 hours of originated programmes across all commissioning genres by the end of the 2027-28 financial year

A reduction of around 350-400 hours in audio across stations and genres

The replacement of daytime programming with pages from Ceefax 

A reintroduction of the Test Card.

A reboot of the Epilogue

A new Closedown

Question Time will be changed to a shorter format called What?

And the Traitors will be merged with coverage of the Labour Party Conference

Doctor Who will be put out of its tender misery