The Delivering Quality First (DQF) cuts to BBC Local Radio

The BBC licence fee has been set at £145.50 for the next five years. The BBC has at the same time taken on responsibility for Welsh Language Broadcaster S4C and the World Service, and set aside funds for digital innovation. The result is that programming and staff must be cut, and those will cuts hit BBC local radio in England very hard.

This programme of cuts is known as Delivering Quality First.

The cuts to local radio

BC Local Radio in England is being told to make 12% cuts, including the loss of 280 from around 1300 jobs across 40 stations. In practice, this means cuts of around 20% to staffing at many local radio stations. Presenters and sport commentators will go, and many of the staff that support them will go also. Local afternoon and evening shows across the country will be axed in favour of evening and national programmes.

BBC managers say that the quality of local broadcasting will not be affected by these cuts. They have even said that local radio will “thrive” under the cuts.

There will be less local sports coverage and less coverage of local music. Fewer local voices, and fewer local staff to respond in times of crisis. More coverage will be non-local written and spoken by people who barely know the geography of the areas they are talking about, let alone understand their communities.

The BBC’s management is proposing the following changes to the BBC local radio in England.

Focus spend on peak-time programmes: breakfast, mid-morning and drivetime; sport; and faith on Sunday mornings.
Increase levels of sharing programming in off-peak slots: weekday afternoons, Sunday afternoons and evenings.
On weekday afternoons most stations would share programming with their neighbouring stations, although a few, which serve a particularly distinct audience, would remain separate.
On weekday evenings between 7pm and 10pm, programming would be shared across England, with all stations coming together except when providing local sports commentaries.
At other off-peak periods programme sharing would occur at a variety of levels. Some would be akin to the regional television areas, and during the late evening in five larger areas: the North; the West Midlands; the East Midlands; the East and South East; and the West and South West.
All stations would broadcast Radio 5 Live from 1am until the start of their breakfast programme.
A number of locally split breakfast programmes would end.
Within all shared programming individual stations would continue to provide local news bulletins at present, and would be able to leave the shared schedules in times of civil emergency or bad weather.
BBC London would lose a number of off-peak programmes and reduce other spend to bring the station more in line with other BBC Local Radio stations.

More on information Delivering Quality First

The BBC Trust is conducting parallel consultations on DQF and local radio provision:

Two contrasting views on the implications of DQF for local radio:

Helen Boaden, BBC Director of News says: "despite the cuts, I believe that BBC Local Radio can survive and even thrive"
Andy Boddington, Shropshire listener, says: "If I wanted to mount a campaign to destroy local radio, this would be the way I would go about it"