BBC Verify has ten managers on its payroll costing a total of around £1 million a year. Safe from cuts…
Their salary bands put the total cost no less than £700,000 even if every one of them sat at the bottom of their band, rising to just over £1 million at the top.
Guido understands the highest paid Verify boss, the executive editor, is on up to £172,000. Coming in second is the head of statistics, on up to £165,000, who manages the Civil Service plants inside the BBC. Neither salary is published, because the BBC only discloses pay above £178,000…
That is on top of up to £480,000 spent on just four Verify correspondent roles. Guido’s moles say the unit has earned the nickname “Workshy Verify” among some staff internally. This comes as BBC News director Rachel Jupp announces a fresh wave of 100 more job losses to save £5.5 million. The top-heavy management layer at Verify looks set to escape the axe…
Guido revealed last week that Verify is actually hiring staff amid the job cuts. Unread, unwatched, and underworked…
Just announced by the BBC:
“The BBC has confirmed the closure of BBC Three, BBC Scotland and BBC Radio 4 Extra linear broadcast services in Spring 2027.
The BBC needs to make tough decisions due to the sustained financial pressures facing the organisation and must make savings of £500 million by 2028. Today’s changes were announced to staff this morning. It means:
- BBC Scotland will remain a channel on iPlayer. Content will also be available on BBC One and BBC Two in Scotland.
- BBC Three commissions, supported by increased investment in content for younger audiences will be available on BBC iPlayer and on other platforms, including YouTube.
- Programmes from Radio 4 Extra will be on BBC Sounds – and The Daily Service will be on BBC Sounds and local radio.
In a note to staff setting out the changes, BBC Director-General Matt Brittin said: ‘We need to make every pound work harder for audiences as we respond to the immediate cost pressures and reinvent the BBC for a changing world. We all know that means tough choices.’
He added on the closure of linear broadcast services: ‘Much of the great content they currently carry will still be found where audiences already enjoy it on iPlayer and Sounds. While this follows media speculation, I recognise the confirmation of this news will be hard for audiences and colleagues.’
Today, more changes have also been announced in BBC News. New Director of BBC News, Rachel Jupp will be laying out plans for further savings early next year as part of the longer-term vision for BBC News. Other divisions will confirm savings plans as soon as possible in the coming months.”
Fresh job cuts to be announced to staff in one hour by Jupp…
Lisa Nandy is considering extending the £180 licence fee to cover streaming services like Netflix and YouTube. A YouTube Tax just to keep the prehistoric BBC ticking over…
Both the Telegraph and the Independent were handed the story, so the government is clearly flying a kite on this. The Independent adds that the cash raised would go towards local journalism and “tackling misinformation, which has fuelled the rise of parties such as Reform UK“. A tax on Disney+ to fund a crackdown on political opposition…
The proposal could appear in Nandy’s White Paper on BBC funding, due before Christmas. Licence sales fell by 539,000 last year to 23.3 million, almost two million fewer than five years ago. And just yesterday, the BBC gleefully announced it would stream BBC News live on YouTube. Where there’s smoke…
The much maligned fact-checking service BBC Verify is expanding amid massive job cuts at the corporation. Ironclad…
The BBC is cutting up to 2,000 jobs, nearly one in ten of its staff, to save £500 million. At the same time BBC Verify has snuck out job ads for two new roles paying a combined £90,000: a senior data journalist and a “journalism researcher.” This follows previous expansion in salary costs for the large unit. Meanwhile all departments are being told they face cutbacks and need to tighten their belts…
Verify already has 95 staff. The brand was the pet project of former head of news Deborah Turness, who quit over the Panorama Trump edit scandal. Her brainchild is getting bigger…
The hiring raises some questions about new director of news Rachel Jupp, who has set out her stall on “being where our audiences are”. Media sources tell Guido that Verify stories are not well read, nor are its video productions well watched. At the BBC 550 jobs are going in the first round of cuts including around 200 in news. The often-wrong fact-checkers being protected is sure to dampen morale further at the corporation…
The BBC has paid compensation to PinkNews founder Benjamin Cohen and his husband Anthony James after a 2024 documentary and accompanying article accused the pair of sexual misconduct. In the High Court, the corporation’s counsel said the BBC apologises “unreservedly” for the defamatory allegations. The article was deleted this morning, while the documentary came off iPlayer last year…
In a statement published today on PinkNews, Cohen and James said:
“By falsely portraying us as engaging in sexual misconduct and pressuring female employees over surrogacy, the BBC reinforced one of the most damaging homophobic tropes: that gay men are sexual predators who pose a threat to others. These were allegations that should never have been broadcast.”
The BBC confirmed the settlement and said there would be no further comment. A humiliation…
The BBC has deleted an article linking bare nails – a new trend among women – with ‘white supremacy’. Oh boy…
The article said the “viral craze” had many critics who claim it can “stigmatise bold manicures” and carried a quote about bare nails from a beauty journalist:
“That trend really promotes blankness and this kind of sameness and erasure of culture and identity that is so important to black and brown communities. They are often called elegant or tasteful and these are often usually euphemisms that perpetuate white supremacist standards of beauty.”
The BBC pulled the article for review and has now deleted it permanently. It said:
“This article examined the trend of bare nails and what might be motivating it, hearing from a range of contributors as well as looking at the cultural significance of manicures. It was removed on 29 September pending an editorial review.
Following this review the article was permanently removed on the same day because it reported criticism of the bare nails trend without sufficient context or challenge and so did not meet our editorial standards.”
Gloss over that one…
Krishnan Guru-Murthy asked John Healey: “Just finally, I mean Andy Burnham has been very clear he wants Britain back in the European Union in his lifetime. Do you?”
The Chancellor replied: “I’m older than Andy Burnham. I don’t expect to see that.”