BBC plans to scrap channels and move shows to YouTube amid licence free overhaul

It is set to cut 2,000 jobs

The new BBC director-general, Matt Brittin, warned that “tough choices are unavoidable” and sent an email to staff explaining that the BBC must move with “urgency” to reinvent itself in a world of “limitless choice”.

As he raised the prospect of cutting back the BBC’s sprawling platforms and services to its essentials, Brittin said that “we should ask ourselves, honestly: if we were inventing the BBC today, what would we do? Then respond with clarity, pace and purpose.”

Acknowledging that YouTube is becoming the default viewing options for millions of young people, he added that “we must be where audiences are, and experiment more bravely”.

Insiders predicted that Brittin would look at the case for closing entire channels, as the BBC is set to cut 2,000 jobs under a three-year savings plan.

Former head of BBC TV News, Roger Mosey, said the new DG should make the iPlayer “the heart of everything the BBC does. That would mean fewer traditional channels: perhaps merge BBC Two and BBC Four, and finally lay to rest BBC Three”.

Under Mosey’s vision, a stripped back-BBC would commission high-impact drama, entertainment and current affairs shows for iPlayer and drop “filler” programmes, such as daytime series, that beef out channel schedules.

Meanwhile, the new director-general also suggested that the BBC’s layer of middle managers could be in his sights, with a promise to back bold decision-making by programme-makers.

“We must never allow our duty to take risks and deliver quality to be undermined by unnecessary process or misplaced caution,” he said.

The new DG pledged to fight for the BBC’s future and back “our brilliant creative, editorial and technical people”, however he did not suggest any retreat from plans already in place to cut 2,000 jobs and make a further 10 per cent in savings over the next three years.

“I know change will not be easy. Tough choices are unavoidable as we make savings,” he said.

While BBC Three and Four could be under threat, according to some news figures, the rolling BBC News channel is also outdated in the YouTube era.

The BBC wants to extend the base of people required to pay the licence fee, possibly including those who watch streaming platforms, as Brittin told staff he would be “making the strongest possible argument for our future as part of the charter process”.

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