History. 1 of 7. Only ABC in 2020 made a cut within a year, when its 7.45am radio news ended on 20 September 2020. The BBC's cuts of 2014 and 2022 took about two years and 15 months. World Service 2011 and ABC 2014 are left out, as their closure dates were not in a listed source.
Hunch. Some BBC changes need a review by Ofcom, the media regulator, before they take effect, as the merger of the BBC's two news channels did in 2022.
The take-effect market resolves YES if a cut the BBC names on or after 25 September 2026 has actually happened by 25 September 2027: the channel or station has stopped broadcasting, merged, or lost its named hours or bulletin, per BBC schedules and the BBC Media Centre. Where Ofcom has to review the change, Ofcom's published decision is needed as well, and a cut approved but not yet in effect resolves NO.
We looked for cases where the head of a large public broadcaster, after the government cut or froze its money, said in public that audiences would lose something: a channel, a station, a language service or a news bulletin. We then checked whether the broadcaster later named what would go. We found nine cases since 2010, and in seven a list of cuts followed. Four of the nine are the BBC. The other five are Denmark's DR, Australia's ABC twice, the Dutch NPO and Austria's ORF, which are paid for by a licence fee or by the state in a similar way.