More than half of the BBC’s TV airtime is now dedicated to repeats as it aims to hit savings targets – but its total number of staff remains almost the same, a report has revealed.
The National Audit Office (NAO) reports that the BBC’s percentage of shows from the past five decades has increased from 49 to 56 percent over the same period.
51% of 2019/20 programmes were repeats. This tipped the balance first and saw it rise to 56% the year after.
At the same time, the corporation has cut back on making new shows, allowing it to keep on track to hit a £1billion-a-year savings target.
According to the National Audit Office, the BBC has increased the number of older shows it broadcasts on its three main channels from 49% to 56% over the past five years.
Corporation has decreased the broadcast television services it provides to license fee payers.
But its total number of staff remained almost the same at 21,437, while staff costs actually went up by 6.5 per cent between 2016/17 and 2020/21, to hit £1.48billion.
Inflation aside, it is only a marginal decrease in actual staff costs.
Figures published by the National Audit Office showed BBC1 has seen a 22 per cent jump in proportion of repeats in this same time period – meaning nearly a third of its hours are old shows.
Meg Hillier of the Public Accounts Committee stated that BBC’s ‘belt tightening’ has ‘increasingly come to the expense of content.
Last night, the BBC stressed that 9.3 percent of the public service employees, which are funded through the license fee, were down.
Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO, said: ‘Over the past decade the BBC has consistently made savings and is largely on course to achieve its £1 billion annual savings target by 2021-22.
But, the company will still need to save significant amounts while addressing many other issues, including its falling audience share.
“The BBC needs to ensure its savings plans are not further undermining its audience position.”
A BBC statement said: ‘We will continue to focus on modernising, improving efficiency and prioritising spending on a range of high quality content to ensure value for money for all licence fee payers.’
It was also revealed that BBC plans to launch a new savings program in 2022-2023, which will require further cuts to its content and services.
A statement from the BBC said: ‘The NAO report concludes the BBC has made nearly £1 billion in savings over the last five years – significantly higher than our initial £800 million target – and continues to be the UK’s most-used media organisation.
“We will keep focusing on modernizing, improving efficiency, and prioritising expenditure on a variety of high-quality content to guarantee value for money to all license fee payers.