Radio Foyle cuts to save £420k ‘ridiculous’ after BBC spent £7m on logo rebrand

A Derry councillor has branded proposed cuts at BBC Radio Foyle ‘ridiculous’ claiming they will save only £420,000 while the state broadcaster recently spent £7m on a logo rebrand.
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Emma McGinley, chair of Derry City and Strabane District Council’s Governance and Strategic Planning Committee, also complained that only £7.60 of the £159 licence fee is allocated to local programming.

“I think it is ridiculous that the BBC are finding cuts to local programming to the tune of £420,000 when over the past number of years they spent £7m rebranding logos.

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“Out of the licence fee of £159 a year, only £7.60 of that is dedicated to local programming but still the BBC thinks this is the first place where cuts should be imposed,” she said.

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Radio Foyle

At the meeting councillors vowed to continue to support the campaign to stop the cuts.

Colr. McGinley told the committee BBC NI interim director Adam Smyth had not, as of Tuesday, responded to official correspondence from the council requesting a meeting.

“We haven't received a response yet to my knowledge which is why I think we need to be writing to everybody else that is there as well, to Tim Davie, who is the Director General of the BBC, and Rhodri Talfan Davies who is the Director of Nations at the BBC to outline the concerns of the impact that these cuts are going to have,” said Colr. McGinley.

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People Before Profit Councillor Shaun Harkin concurred, stating: “It is absolutely right that we continue to advocate and campaign in support of BBC Radio Foyle.

"We should, not only write to Tim Davie and Rhodri Davies, we should also invite them to come here, and hear directly from all the parties and independents because one thing we can say with certainty is that there is massive and broad support to protect and save Radio Foyle and I would hope we could actually extend it and we want to be able to make that case to the people who run the BBC,” he said.

Sinn Féin Christopher Jackson said it was ‘extremely disappointing’ not to have received a reply from Mr. Smyth by Tuesday.

He said the decision to axe the Breakfast Programme and hourly news bulletins and to cut posts, was taken when there was no Irish member of the BBC board.

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“These proposed cuts have been taken without any contribution or any thought from local people here and that demonstrates the need for some sort of consultation and for the BBC to propose cuts to this extent, impacting local services, without any consultation in a time when there is a political vacuum, where appointments to the BBC board couldn’t be made, is disgraceful,” he told the committee.

SDLP Councillor Brian Tierney agreed, stating: “It is not OK to take these decisions in Belfast or London and sit there then and hide from the people in the particular area which is going to be most impacted by them.”

Colr. Tierney added: “It is important as a Council to be seen to be supporting the saving of the station but also of the saving of those jobs up there because...the journalists up there are so, so committed and dedicated to giving ordinary people across the north west a voice on big issues that are impacting on them.”