6 2GM Friday May 27 2022 | the times
News
The BBC will shut down the television
channels BBC4 and CBBC, and Radio 4
Extra, moving them online as part of a
£500 million savings plan after minis-
ters froze the licence fee.
Tim Davie, the director-general, said
the corporation had had to make “diffi-
cult choices” as it sought to plug a
£1.4 billion hole in its finances and
embrace the digital revolution.
The BBC said as many as 1,
people would either lose their job or be
moved from licence fee funded opera-
tions into commercial arms.
Service closures were always likely to
be among the most eye-catching meas-
ures announced by Davie. Staff were
told of the need to pull back from
“smaller linear channels”.
BBC4 will disappear from TV in 2025
after two decades, as first reported by
The Times. The channel has a budget of
BBC4 shunted online as bosses
try to plug £1.4bn funding gap
£30 million, but has been hollowed out
in recent years and now mainly shows
repeats. It has screened hits including
the comedies The Thick of It and
Detectorists.
CBBC, the 20-year-old children’s
channel, and Radio 4 Extra, which re-
placed Radio 7 in 2011, will also shut
down from 2025. Their content will be
moved to iPlayer and BBC Sounds.
In another big change, the BBC’s roll-
ing news channel is to be merged with
BBC World News, the international
channel. Both will show the same con-
tent at the same time, although there
will be a dedicated UK feed at times for
big domestic stories.
One source criticised the move and
said the BBC was “ceding domestic con-
tinuous news to rivals like GB News”.
Other cuts include:
6 Radio 4 long wave will lose dedicated
programming, such as the shipping fore-
cast, before the frequency’s planned clo-sure. The end of long wave will leave
many fans of Test Match Special unable
to tune in to the ball-by-ball cricket com-
mentary. The show is thought to have
tens of thousands of analogue listeners.
6 Radio 5 Live’s medium wave service
will end in 2027, in line with industry
plans to wind down the frequency. A
million people listen to Radio 5 on
medium wave, though the number has
halved in the past five years.
6 Original television programming
will be cut by 200 hours a year, neces-
sitating more repeats. At present nearly
20,000 hours of content is shown on
BBC1, BBC2 and BBC4.
6 Dedicated TV news bulletins from
Oxford and Cambridge will close,
merging with South Today and Look
East. We Are England, the local current
affairs show that replaced Inside Out
this year, will end after one series.
6 Licence fee funding for the World
Service is due to be reduced by £30 mil-lion from next year by moving TV and
radio language services to digital.
The BBC needs to save £285 million a
year by 2027 after the government’s
decision to freeze the licence fee at £
until 2024. Fresh cuts account for about
£200 million of Davie’s announcement;
the remaining £85 million is savings
from previous efficiency projects.
The BBC is exceeding savings target
by cutting £500 million a year, but
£300 million will be reinvested in iPlay-
er and other online services. Local news
roles will be protected and 1,000 staff
will be retrained in digital-first journal-
ism. Decisions on job and content cuts
will be made in the coming months.
Davie vowed to continue to cut the
number of senior leaders and “unneces-
sary bureaucracy”. He said: “This is our
moment to build a digital-first BBC —
something genuinely new, a Reithian
organisation for the digital age, a posi-
tive force for the UK and the world.”Jake Kanter Media Correspondent
Passengers have been stuck in long
queues in airports across the country
after British Airways and easyJet can-
celled hundreds of flights.
BA cancelled 114 flights at Heathrow
and easyJet grounded nine planes at
Gatwick and axed 200 flights because
of IT problems. Gatwick customers
vented their frustration after staff
shortages at check-in desks and border
control added to the chaos.
In Exeter holidaymakers had to wait
20 hours to board a Tui flight because of
technical problems. At Manchester
Airports chaos blamed on staff shortages and IT failures
airport queues stretched into the car
park. Passengers already on flights
were also affected as aircraft were de-
layed from taking off on runways.
One Wizz Air captain lost his temper
over the intercom after a long runway
delay at Gatwick. Hannah Mace, a pas-
senger on the flight to Cyprus, upload-
ed a video of his announcement to Tik-
Tok. “You know, I don’t need this!” he
said. “The crew don’t need this. We are
doing what we can to get you out of
here. It’s completely out of my control.
If you want to get off, I’ll let you off, no
problem.”
Ellie Baker, the Team GB 800mrunner, complained that she was wait-
ing at an airport “ready to fly to Poznan
for my race tomorrow” but Wizz Air
overbooked the flight and “put me on
standby, which basically means I won’t
be getting on the flight”. She added:
“There isn’t another one today so I will
miss my race tomorrow.”
Pictures of crowded terminals
emerged online, with passengers call-
ing scenes at Gatwick a “total sham-
bles”. The airport said it was experienc-
ing technical problems, adding: “Our
team of IT specialists is working to
restore the systems as soon as possible.”
EasyJet said that air-traffic controlrestrictions led to it removing round-
trips from Gatwick at short notice. The
airline apologised for the
inconvenience.
British Airways cancelled flights in-
cluding short-haul trips within the UK
and longer flights to destinations in-
cluding Corfu, Ibiza, Istanbul and
Malaga. The airline, which cut 10,
jobs in the pandemic, has had flights
delayed by IT problems and has had to
bring in crew from Finnair to complete
some scheduled flights.
Customers whose flights are can-
celled or delayed are usually entitled to
compensation.Charlie Parker
Guardsmen arrested
Six members of the Irish Guards
have been arrested on suspicion
of supplying illegal drugs, money
lending and money laundering,
the Ministry of Defence said. A
former Coldstream Guardsman
was also arrested. Five of the
seven suspects have been
released on bail. The arrests were
made in Hampshire, Berkshire,
Wales and Northern Ireland.Dash for ‘golden visas’
Nearly 150 “golden visas” were
issued to wealthy foreign
investors in the weeks before the
scheme was scrapped. Eighteen
were granted to Russians and 41
to Chinese applicants in the first
quarter of this year, according to
Home Office figures. The Labour
MP Chris Bryant said the system
was a “backdoor loophole” to
funnel dirty money into the UK.Maternity care failures
An NHS trust at the centre of a
maternity care scandal has been
given a safety warning. The Care
Quality Commission said a lack
of basic checks at Nottingham
City Hospital and Queen’s
Medical Centre left women and
babies still at risk. A senior
midwife is to chair a review after
claims that failures in care led to
deaths and severe injuries.Depeche Mode death
Andy “Fletch” Fletcher, the
Depeche Mode keyboardist, has
died aged 60. On social media the
band said: “We are shocked and
filled with overwhelming sadness
with the untimely passing of our
dear friend.” The 1980s synth pop
band, including Martin Gore,
Vince Clarke and Dave Gahan,
had chart hits in 1981 with New
Life and Just Can’t Get Enough.Winners at The Times
Patrick Hosking, the financial
editor of The Times, has been
named Journalist of the Year at
the Wincott Awards. Imogen
Tew, senior money reporter, also
won the Young Journalist
category for “combining original
angles, broad public relevance
and humour”. Hosking’s Tuesday
business column has tackled
subjects ranging from inflation to
Netflix’s stalling growth. He has
beaten his rivals to break stories
on a Santander banking error and
the cost of living crisis.AABCCCDE
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letter underneath once only
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Solutions MindGames in Times
Cryptic clues every day onlineGlory on high The choir of St John’s College, Cambridge, sang the Ascension Day carol from the top of the 163ft chapel tower yesterday. The custom dates from 1902
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