NUJ lambasts BBC plan to cut local radio content
Media / UK
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has described possible plans by the BBC to offload its local radio production as potentially meaning ‘the death of local radio’ which could affect over 700 jobs.
The BBC’s director general Mark Thompson is understood to have put forward the plans to replace local radio with content taken from Radio 5 Live, which is set to move to MediaCityUK in Salford.
Jeremy Dear, the NUJ's general secretary, described local radio, saying that it played ‘a crucial role’ in informing communities, and said that such proposals would ‘effectively sound the death knell’ for local radio.
"The BBC's plans would be a blow to quality journalism at the BBC and fly in the face of public commitments to localism and transparency. Local radio programmes are produced by local people for local audiences yet these decisions are being taken far away from communities and behind closed doors,” added Dear.
He continued to call for the BBC to ‘step back from the brink’ and said that it should protect its local radio services.
“If they do not we will actively resist plans which threaten to inflict such devastating damage to local radio services,” he concluded.
The strategy is in response to freeze by the Government on the license fee, meaning budget cuts across the BBC were necessary.
The BBC has said that no decision had yet been taken.
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