The BBC World Service is to cut 382 jobs as part of plans announced last week to accelerate its digital offering and to reduce costs.

The BBC cited changing audience needs around the world - with more people accessing news digitally - alongside a challenging financial climate as the reason for the cuts.

5. BBC World Service to cut nearly 400 jobs

BBC World Service to cut 382 jobs

High inflation, soaring costs, and a cash-flat BBC licence fee settlement have led to tough choices across the corporation.

The BBC’s international services need to make a saving of £28.5m, as part of its wider plan to make £500m of annual savings and reinvestment and to make the BBC digital-led.

The proposals will see seven more language services moving to digital only, meaning that nearly half of all 41 language services will be digital only.

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The BBC said the World Service will continue to operate in all the languages and countries where it is currently present, including the new languages added during its expansion in 2016. No language services will close.

Some TV and radio programmes will stop under the new plans. BBC Arabic radio and BBC Persian radio will also cease.

World Service English will continue to operate as 24 hour broadcast radio, available around the world. Some new scheduling, programmes and podcasts will be set out in due course.

The World Service currently reaches 148m people in an average week.

The language services which are already digital only are: Azerbaijani, Brasil, Marathi, Mundo, Punjabi, Russian, Serbian, Sinhala, Thai, Turkish, and Vietnamese.

Radio services the BBC is proposing to stop are: Arabic, Persian, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Hindi, Bengali, Chinese, Indonesian, Tamil, and Urdu.

Language services the BBC is proposing to move to digital only are: Chinese, Gujarati, Igbo, Indonesian, Pidgin, Urdu, and Yoruba.

Director of BBC World Service Liliane Landor said: “There is a compelling case for expanding our digital services across the World Service in order to better serve and connect with our audiences. The way audiences are accessing news and content is changing and the challenge of reaching and engaging people around the world with quality, trusted journalism is growing.”

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