BBC Director General Matt Brittin has warned that some TV channels and radio stations "may well" be closed as a result of cost-cutting measures. Speaking with journalist Laura Kuenssberg in a new interview set to debut this weekend, Brittin reflected on the BBC's financial situation.
"Nobody running any organisation can guarantee that everything is going to stay the same in the future. It's a world of huge change," he said in a teaser clip shared on X. Asked if some TV channels and radio stations may need to close as a result, Brittin replied, "It may well mean that."
Audience behaviour has changed
"What's happening is that audience behaviour has fundamentally changed. The world has changed," he explained. "You're absolutely right, we wouldn't guarantee any programme or any channel will exist forever.
"The tight financial situation means we're having to look at some of those decisions a bit sooner than we'd like. If most of an audience is getting things on demand, we have to look at the value and the cost of all of those different services."
"We might have some channels and services where maybe 100,000 people are watching the broadcast service, but 500,000 are getting those programmes on iPlayer," the BBC boss pointed out. "When's the right time to migrate that service fully to being on-demand? And part of my job is to safeguard value for money for the licence fee payer."
Savings plan and job cuts
Brittin concluded that the BBC was still "locked into yesterday's model of how people consume content, and actually the audience is always already living in tomorrow's world".
Brittin, who took over as Director General in May, has been tasked with making many tough decisions. In June, just one month after his arrival, the BBC's new £500million savings plan was unveiled. As a result, staff were told that 550 roles would be closed across the News, Nations and Content divisions by early 2027/2028.
Several BBC shows have also been cancelled, including Blankety Blank, Celebrity Mastermind, Football Focus, Live at the Apollo, RuPaul's Drag Race UK, and Ski Sunday.
