BBC Four & CBBC to close

[DTV]

To be honest, I am quite surprised at how lightly Radio (and not just local) has been cut. 

It's because it's the cheaper medium so there's less to cut.  For example BBC One costs £900 million a year, if they cut 10% of it's budget that's is the equivalent of Radios 1, 1 Xtra, Radio 3 and 6 Music .... so what's the better to cut?





That said it is their cheapest radio station, and one of the most popular digital-only stations that's getting the axe - Radio 4 Extra costs a bargain £3 million a year

I, of course, appreciate that radio is overall a cheaper medium, but I think that Radio still gets off proportionately lightly with cuts - especially considering that all those radio stations do add up in monetary terms. Entire BBC TV services and now channels have been axed, while the question of axing or merging Radio stations, particularly local radio, doesn't seem to be seriously asked. And I think there are cuts that can clearly be made - a rationalisation of Radios 3, 4 and 5 and a 50% reduction in the number of English local radio stations would save in the region of £70-90m (equivalent to the combined current budgets of BBC News and BBC Four).

Radio 3 is as expensive per listener hour as BBC One or Two are per viewer hour and is frequently accused of not offering anything really different to competitors like Classic FM. Radio 4 produces seven to eight hours of news and current affairs programming per day (not including WS simulcast), which produces elements of duplication with Radio 5 Live's news-oriented output. 5 Live's phone-in dominated schedule has also been criticised for offering little variation and being too similar to commercial competitors like LBC or Talk Radio. I just think that having one radio station that mixes 3's cultural and classical output with 4's dramas, comedies and non-factual talks with another station that combines 4's flagship news and factual programmes with some phone-ins and live sport gives a holy trinity of significant savings, no total elimination of any individual service and a better PSB justification for what is left.

English local radio is obviously responsible for a lot of duplication and is the largest single component of the BBC Radio buget, even with increased amounts of sharing between neighbours. But I don't think you'd particularly lose a lot if you merged most stations together to match the TV regions, with some potential exceptions (for instance, I think an argument can be made that the West Midlands county and the wider West Midlands region could be better served by different services).

Again, I understand that TV is more expensive and you get to cut less output per £ of savings, but I think there has been a real asymmetry in how the cutbacks have affected television and radio. BBC One might have the biggest budget by far, but it is also the only part of the BBC's broadcast output that is actually used by the majority of the population every week. Radio 2 is the only radio station with a weekly reach of over 20%. While the BBC, as a PSB, should obviously produce stuff for minority audiences that other broadcasters won't produce, I think people forget the other half of that bargain is producing popular programming that allows for the BBC to justify itself and ultimately allow for cross-subsidisation of those minority-interest services.

Apologies for the essay.