This is the text of an email Mark Thompson sent to staff on March 2 2009, explaining the proposed closure of some services:

Subject: Putting Quality First

Dear All,

Today I’m going to set out the conclusions of a piece of strategic thinking we’ve done over the past few months. We’re calling it "Putting Quality First". Last summer, the BBC Trust and I agreed that I should formulate proposals for the shape and direction of the BBC in the second half of the Charter. If Creative Future focused on the years up to 2012, "Putting Quality First" looks ahead to 2016.

You will have read plenty of speculation - and some irritating leaking - of some of the specific recommendations of this review. This morning I will be giving clarity on the detail, but also will put the review in the proper context. The proper context is not: how big should the BBC be? The right first question is: what is the BBC for? Get the answer to that right and everything else - editorial priorities, size and scope, role online - everything else flows from it.

The BBC has one mission: to inform, educate and entertain audiences with programmes and services of high quality, originality and value.

This review doesn’t replace Creative Future. It builds on it and its vision of the BBC’s role in the digital age. But the fact that we’ve needed to do a new review so quickly does reflect the incredible extent to which our world has changed even in the few years since Creative Future was published.

It is exactly because the media is changing so fast that we must articulate our public service mission and our values more clearly and consistently than ever before. There can be no turning back on our digital journey.

But we also have to recognise the profound challenges facing much of commercial media. And that, while some attacks made on the BBC are destructive and baseless, others represent legitimate concern about the boundaries of what we do, and about our future public service and commercial ambitions. We need to listen more closely than we have in the past.

The proposals which I have submitted to the Trust do represent a step-change with the past. We can’t do everything and, after years of expansion of our home services, we propose some reductions. The Trust will consult widely on this, as on other aspects of the strategy. I know that any proposed service closure is painful both for those who watch or listen to it, and to all those who work on it. But many of you have also made it very clear to me in recent years that you believed we were approaching the point where, if we really wanted to maintain quality, we would have to make some tough choices.

If these proposals are approved, there will be a long-term impact on jobs. We are proposing a 25% reduction in online investment which will mean a cut in the numbers of people who work on bbc.co.uk, though we will maintain our commitment to priority editorial areas like journalism. We are also proposing closing 6Music, Asian Network, BBC Switch, and Blast!. If approved, the service closures will also have an impact on jobs, as will a long-range commitment to reduce the overhead costs of running the BBC.

The earliest we would expect the service closures to take place is the end of 2011. We’ve had real success in recent years in using natural churn and redeployment to close many thousands of posts at the BBC without extensive compulsory redundancies and we would expect to do exactly the same in this case.

Today’s announcements also signals new investment - in journalism, in children’s output, in quality content of many different kinds. So there will be some new jobs and new opportunities being created as well as existing posts closed.

The Trust are publishing these management proposals today. A full proposal and a summary can be found here.

This morning and in the days to come, you’re going to hear and read about our proposed answers to these challenges. People who are hoping that the BBC is about to throw in the towel or shrink to a fraction of its current size are going to be disappointed.

This is not a blueprint for a small BBC, or a BBC which is in retreat from digital or from anything else. That is the last thing the British public want. They want - and I want - a BBC which has the confidence to concentrate on what it does best: which is to deliver services of outstanding quality and originality and to be a beacon of creativity and excellence for audiences everywhere.

All the best,
Mark