Reducing regional output is an error

THE BBC is making a huge tactical error in reducing its regional output across England.

The recent announcement of reductions in news gathering and local factual programme making will see hundreds of staff, including journalists, losing their jobs in the regions.

Local radio stations, including BBC Radio Leicester, will be reduced to just three locally produced daytime programmes.

These proposals should be put on hold immediately and licence feepayers should be consulted as part of a public inquiry.

A breathing space is now needed.

The shape and form of the BBC cannot be left to a closed and unelected management team.

Gradually, the BBC is being transformed, with decision-making and programme commissioning centralised and its regional operations pared back to bare basics.

What possible justification can there be for a universal licence fee that gives little back to the majority who have to pay it?

A publicly-funded BBC should be, indeed must be, spread out, far and wide.

If it were closer to more of the people who pay for it and if it returned to a more federal commissioning structure, it would be more vibrant, more relevant and its output would be far more diverse.

Does it really matter? After all, we in the Midlands consume the programmes that these days are nearly always made elsewhere.

We have no choice on that. The BBC’s own figures reveal that last year it spent only 2 per cent of its television programme-making budget in the Midlands and East.

A dismal share for 25 per cent of its licence fee payers. Switch on your TV or radio and we are hardly to be seen or heard.

Are they ashamed of the Midlands? One thing is for sure, the latest announcement will not reverse the imbalance we already suffer.

The BBC needs to be saved from itself and fast.

The constant nibbling away at Midlands programme-making and studio facilities in order to help pay for its vast operation in London continues unashamedly.

They have created a formula that adversely affects the Midlands’ creative and wider economy, and which ultimately puts at risk the concept of the licence fee and, with it, the higher standards of public broadcasting. Save it or lose it.

Michael Bradley, Solihull