Job Losses in BBC NI Online Departments
26 Jan 2011 :
Erik Huggers Tweet The BBC has this week announced that it is to reduce its online budget by a quarter, resulting in approximately 360 job losses, four to seven of which will be in its Northern Ireland departments. Discussions are now beginning between staff and unions as to the job losses. The Director of Future Media and Technology at the BBC, Erik Huggers made the announcement on his official BBC blog where he revealed that, as a result of new measures decided on by the BBC, there are some editorial areas the group will be pulling back from others that will be closing completely. These will include the closure of half of the 400 Top Level Domains (with 180 closing ahead of schedule later this year); the replacement of the majority of BBC programme websites with automated content; the removal of non-News features content from Local sites and the closure of RAW, Blast, Switch, Video Nation and the disposal of h2g2. Mr Huggers went on to outline how this would affect the BBC Online staff, saying that: “Subject to consultation with the Unions, we are proposing the closure of up to 360 posts, phased over the next two years.” Mr Huggers estimated that, of this number, “120 posts will close in Future Media & Technology, 70 posts in Journalism (News and Nations non-News), 85-90 in Vision, 35-39 in Audio & Music, 17 in Children’s and 24 in Sport.” He concluded by saying that: ”Though we aim to mitigate the redundancies by redeploying staff, this will be a difficult time for the staff affected – these cuts will be painful, but we believe they are necessary.” Mr Huggers announced last week that he is leaving the BBC to become head of Intel’s digital home group, after four years in his present role. A BBC Northern Ireland spokesperson explained to IFTN that these new measures will affect BBC NI staff, stating: “BBC Northern Ireland will be making a contribution to the pan-BBC savings. We estimate this could result in four to seven post closures in the two departments affected. Discussions are now beginning with staff and unions.” For a full list of the measure that are to be taken by BBC in reducing its online budget see Mr Hugger’s BBC Blog at www.bbc.co.uk/blogs Free Industry Newsletter Subscribe to IFTN's industry newsletter - it's free and e-mailed directly to your inbox every week. Click here to sign up.	CONNECT WITH IFTN Find us on Facebook Follow IFTN on Twitter E-Newsletter Subscribe Subscribe to RSS Feed

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