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BBC News logo on a smartphone
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The British BBC is merging its news channels and is therefore cutting dozens of jobs.
As the broadcasting organization announced, the broadcasters BBC News and BBC World News are to be merged, with around 70 employees likely to lose their jobs.
The cuts are part of a series of austerity measures that became necessary after the license fee freeze.
The new channel BBC News, due to launch in April 2023, will broadcast from London during the day and from Singapore and Washington during the UK night.
The BBC said it would create a streamlined organization that "makes the most of the royalty and delivers more to audiences."
Fees are frozen
The public broadcaster is set to save around £285m (€337m) after Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries announced it would freeze £159 a year for the next two years.
The background to this is the announcement by the current British government that it intends to abolish broadcasting fees entirely from 2027 and will not have any more fee increases in 2022 and 2023.
The business model of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which is celebrating its 100th birthday this year, is heavily dependent on fees.
It had previously been announced that the BBC Four, Radio 4 and CBBC channels would no longer operate as linear channels.
In the past year and a half, 1,200 employees have already left the station.
rai/dpa
