This is from The Daily Telegraph:-

The BBC has been accused of planning “the death of local radio”, as it prepares to replace almost all its local programming with the national station Radio 5 Live.

Staff at the BBC’s 40 local radio stations will be briefed today on the plans, which would lead to each one producing only breakfast and drivetime programmes, with 5 Live being broadcast at other times.

Trade unionists at the BBC fear that the proposals would lead to at least 700 job losses, as well as decimating the BBC’s service to local areas.

NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear said: “Local radio plays a crucial role in keeping local communities informed. These proposals would rip the heart out of local programming and effectively sound the death knell for local radio.”

Mike Bettison, the head of Radio Nottingham, confirmed that “a merger with Radio 5 Live is under consideration” - which, he added, would “certainly end the service as we now know it”.

Staff also fear that some individual stations could close completely, as even the breakfast and drivetime programmes become pooled into bigger regions.

The BBC is already running pilot schemes for this kind of programme-sharing in the south-east of England (for drivetime on Radio Surrey, Radio Kent and Radio Sussex) and Yorkshire (for mid-afternoon on Radio Sheffield, Radio York and Radio Leeds).

The plans are one of the first concrete proposals to emerge from Delivering Quality First, a review which is underway across the BBC to find the savings necessary to balance the books in the wake of the six-year licence-fee freeze that was agreed by Mark Thompson, the corporation’s director-general, with the Coalition last October.

As part of the deal, the BBC will take on responsibility for funding the World Service and S4C, which will require cuts of 16 per cent or more to existing BBC budgets across the board.

A BBC spokesman said: “No decisions have been made so it would be wrong to speculate. It is of course only right that BBC staff have an opportunity to input ideas about shaping the BBC’s future.

"The Delivering Quality First sessions are designed to provoke discussion amongst staff about the way the BBC works and any decisions coming out of the process would be subject to approval by the BBC Trust.”

Alex Cunningham, the Labour MP for Stockton South, said he was “worried” about the plans.

Gary Dunion, a BBC local radio listener, said: “A world without Lancashire Gardeners’ Question Time isn’t a world I want to live in. Save BBC local radio!”


By:- Neil Midgley

Source:-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/8374563/BBC-blasted-for-planni...

When local radio began, people said they didn't need it. After five years, they couldn't imagine life without it. But that was in the days when it delivered a worthwhile local service - right through the day. Band and choir competitions, 'Village of the week', specialist gardening programmes...If 'Delivering quality' is the mantra, the BBC needs to revamp its local radio strategy. 'Listening figures worship' had led (in some areas) to the very periods that could now go to Radio 5 sounding more like Radio 2 with local News and travel - and, in many cases, with inferior presentation.
Of course there's money to be saved as things stand, but that's not what I (for twenty years) and my former colleagues were proud to deliver.