BBC could move 3,000 jobs out of London by 2027

Tony Hall

The BBC has pledged to make two-thirds of its roles based outside of London by 2027.

BBC director general Tony Hall said that the BBC “can do more for Britain than ever” and argued that the broadcaster should be better representative of the country as a whole.

Writing in the Financial Times, he said: “A decade ago, a third of the BBC was based outside London. Today it is half. By 2027, I hope at least two-thirds of the BBC will be outside the capital.”

The broadcaster spent the better part of the 2000s and 2010s bulking up outside of the capital, and moved a significant amount of its operations – including flagship talk radio station BBC Radio 5Live – to MediaCityUK in Salford, near the UK city of Manchester.

It has also shifted its kids operations to same facility and doubled the number of shows being produced in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.

In his article. Hall does not explicitly say that jobs will be moved, but reports suggest the plan could see up to 3,000 jobs moved from London to other regions. Hall is set to lay out the broadcaster’s strategy in full in a staff meeting on Wednesday.

The director general has faced scrutiny in recent months over his handling of the BBC’s decision to eliminate free licence fees to adults aged over 75.

A DCMS review criticised Hall for how he handled the negotiations with the government, saying that he failed to seek the formal agreement of the BBC executive board before recommending the deal to the BBC Trust.

The BBC was also criticised heavily by both sides of the aisle in regards to impartiality and the 2019 general election, while it also lost a landmark case around payments to presenters, and was found to have underpaid Newswatch host Samira Ahmed by £700,000 ($900,000).