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David Dimbleby has called sweeping cuts and programme closures at the BBC “appalling”.
The presenter, who worked at the broadcaster for almost six decades, said new director-general Matt Brittin’s “tough choices”, which include the axing of 550 jobs, as a “very bad, bad, bad, bad, bad call”.
In an interview with Radio Times, the 87-year-old was asked about the corporation’s aims of saving £500m by 2029 through budget cuts including the axing of his favourite show, The World Tonight on Radio 4.
He said: “Why on Earth have they done that? The best analysis of politics, both national and international, with the wonderful James Coomarasamy, at just the time I want to hear it each night. I’m appalled. Very bad, bad, bad, bad, bad call.”
As part of the cuts at the broadcaster, Radio 4 will lose The World Tonight, which was first broadcast in 1970, along with the Midnight News, Money Box Live, AntiSocial, The Law Show and Crossing Continents. All will be shut down during the next year.
On television, reporters and presenters will be encouraged to film videos on their mobile phones rather than using camera crews. The number of BBC News chief presenter roles may also be cut.
In total, there will be a net reduction of 550 roles across the BBC’s News, Nations and Content divisions, which are part of the 2,000 job losses to come over the next three years.
Announcing the cuts last month, Mr Brittin said in an email to staff: “The scale of savings requires tough choices, careful work and won’t all be ready at once. We are committed to letting you know as soon as we have plans in your area.
“Making savings while fulfilling our mission means a doubly difficult time for everyone. We will also have to close some programmes. These are difficult choices.”
Cuts to channels could also include merging BBC Four with BBC Two, and the closure of BBC Three.
Another 700 job losses in the corporate division will be set out in the next few months, meaning the total cost savings are expected to be £160m by the end of this financial year.
Coomarasamy’s show is being replaced by a domestic news bulletin, followed by the World Service programme Newshour.
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Elsewhere, Mr Dimbleby took aim at the downsizing of the broadcaster’s team that produces the “crown jewels” of British broadcasting to one person from six.
A team at BBC Studios Events is behind the broadcaster’s coverage of major national moments including Elizabeth II’s state funeral, the coronation of the King and the Remembrance Day service at the Cenotaph.
That team has been reduced to just one person – Claire Popplewell, who oversaw the BBC’s coverage of the weddings of the Prince and Princess of Wales and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
Speaking about those cuts, which were revealed in March, Mr Dimbleby said: “It takes months of connections to make friends with the people at the palace, with Westminster Abbey, with the police, to know what’s going on with Downing Street, so that when the day comes, everybody helps you.
“It’s a BBC gold standard to cover big national events. It’s at the heart of the BBC, and I cannot understand what they’re up to. But I have no power in the BBC.”
Elsewhere, Mr Dimbleby said that he did not “think people like me should take honours”, when asked whether he would be open to the idea, explaining: “When Robin Day got a knighthood, I said to him, ‘You shouldn’t take it, Robin – it’s quite wrong. You’re a man of the people, or you’re nothing.’”
