Furious BBC business staff condemned the decision to relocate them from London’s centre of global finance to Greater Manchester.
The World Service business team wrote to Richard Sharp, BBC chairman, to express their concern that the move to Salford of 200 miles would affect the quality of Corporation coverage.
The BBC announced the plan in March, when it stated that 400 jobs would be moved from London to cities like Birmingham, Leeds and Cardiff.
It understood that the entire business unit of 40 radio presenters and producers has so far refused to relocate – and some have now left the BBC.
Furious BBC business employees have slammed the decision to relocate them from London’s center of global finance to Greater Manchester.
The Mail obtained their letter to the chairman on Sunday. It questioned whether the Salford move represented good value for BBC licence-payers.
“[The plan]It includes a proposal for reducing the amount of airtime dedicated to businesses and moving all 40 of the global business and economics journalists posts from London, the preeminent finance centre in the world, to Salford. It stated, “This is a clearly absurd decision.”
The letter also stated that only two of the three of them were seriously considering moving to Salford. The rest cannot move. The programs and the World Service as a whole will be affected if there is no experience in global business reporting.
The BBC’s efforts to restructure the newsroom by moving entire teams to different parts of the UK has been hit with a backlash.
Radio 1’s Newsbeat staff refused to move to a new Birmingham base. Rory Cellan Jones, the long-standing technology correspondent, resigned after being asked to relocate to Glasgow.
The World Service business division produces popular radio programs, including its flagship World Business Report.
It focuses on programming for international audiences, which means staff must be based in London to have access to major companies, conferences, and international business leaders who visit and work in the capital.
They described Salford as “starved of access” in the letter [they]”Meet”
The team currently sits alongside the BBC’s World TV Business team in London. They share resources that, according to the letter “has undoubtedly reduced duplicate and has therefore been cost-effective use licence fee money”.
The World Service staff suggested that instead of moving to the UK, they relocate to ‘another, UK-focused program or support team.
A BBC insider stated that ‘We’re being asked to move for a cut in pay because we’re losing London weighting. [where staff receive a larger salary due to the higher cost of living in the capital]It is not clear what the job descriptions mean.
Another said, “Our sources are located in London and we fear that it will lead to a cost-cutting exercise whereby they will attempt to cover world stories with domestic journalists.”
Last night, a BBC spokesperson stated that the BBC will continue to deliver high-quality business reporting to audiences worldwide, including World Business Report.