Reports seem to differ as to how many jobs will go at the BBC following the sweeping changes announced by Director General Mark Thompson yesterday - but rest assured, it's a lot. As revealed in yesterday's CMU Daily (credit where it's due - we stole it from the Media Guardian), Thompson's plans to make the BBC a leaner fitter cultural machine (and a more acceptable machine for the politicians currently reconsidering the Beeb's charter) will see some 3000 jobs go in the Corporation's 'support services', the shift of children and sports programmes, and most of Radio 5Live, to Manchester, and another shift of focus onto those programming areas of particular importance to the BBC, which apparently includes music, which is nice.
The job cuts and shift of operations to Manchester will take place over a number of years, giving everyone at Radio 5 the chance to find a job at Radio 4 (presumably). Thompson has promised good redundancy packages for those that go - senior execs will be hoping most can be lost through voluntary redundancy, if only because the main unions with influence at the BBC - the National Union of Journalists, Amicus and Bectu - have all said they will resist compulsory redundancies.