The BBC has confirmed plans to revamp the BBC Four television channel by shifting its focus away from the original content as the British broadcaster’s programming and services come under pressure from a £ 950 million ($ 1.3 billion) austerity initiative feel.
The BBC released its 69-page annual plan on Monday, outlining the company’s creative, strategic and commercial plans for the next 12 months. The document states that the BBC is well on track to deliver £ 880m in savings by the end of March, meaning it is a year ahead of schedule to reach a £ 800m target that it set itself five years ago for 2022.
The BBC now expects to save more than £ 950 million by March 2022, but said the toughest cuts are yet to come and warns that “further savings will bring difficult decisions that will affect programs and services “. It follows a similarly dire January prediction from spending watchdog, the National Audit Office.
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One service that will suffer from efficiency gains is BBC Four. Once home to Charlie Brooker’s Wipe franchise, Emmy-nominated drama Burton & Taylor, and the BAFTA-winning Comedy Detectorists, the station is now being repositioned as an archive service.
The BBC announced plans last week to double art and music spending on BBC Two, but said in its annual plan: “This approach requires a move away from hiring a high volume of lower-cost programs to BBC Four that are less effective Audiences on the channel and on the iPlayer. “
It continued: “Instead, BBC Four will be home to the most distinctive content from across the BBC archive. It will also remain home to performances such as the BBC Proms, BBC Young Dancer and BBC Young Musician.
“The proposed changes to BBC Four will build on the broadcaster’s current offering of archival content, which already includes 76% of BBC Four’s airtime and 69% of the station’s airtime.” The changes also require regulatory approval, added the BBC.
In a pandemic year when the demand for BBC was growing, the annual plan also showed that 90% of adults in the UK used BBC services every week. A record 33 million people visited the broadcaster’s online services, including iPlayer, each week.
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