The kindest cut
Strikes at the BBC are, in a way, rather handy for the new director-general
IF THE BBC is to survive and prosper as a public-service broadcaster in the next decade and beyond, said Mark Thompson, its director-general, last December, it has to give people “more quality, more ambition, more depth than they get from any other broadcaster”. It may seem odd, but the first step along the way is lots of redundancies. Over the next three years 3,780 jobs will go, out of 19,579 in public-service broadcasting. This week nearly two-fifths of its staff went on strike for a day. More strikes are likely to follow next week.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “The kindest cut”
From the May 28th 2005 edition
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