Category: Wales
Date: 21.03.2005
Printable version
ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Wales today (Monday 21 March) unveiled a major restructuring in preparation for the new ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Charter and the national switchover to digital television.
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ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Director-General Mark Thompson announced that the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ plans to make savings across the UK of £355m over three years, cutting a total of 3,780 posts.
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Today Menna Richards, Controller ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Wales, announced job losses of up to 194 over three years from ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Wales' content and output areas.
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Menna Richards said: "Our intention is to restructure ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Wales's production base to be less bureaucratic, more creative, more efficient, more flexible and to offer better value for money.
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"Also, we must anticipate the changes that technology will bring.
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"We were required to find financial savings of £9.6m over three years.
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"I realise how deeply unsettling today's news will be to many staff. It is not an easy day for any of us.
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"But Mark Thompson has said that, once savings are made, reinvestment will follow.
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"By the end of the three years, we expect total reinvestment in our output in Wales of approximately £10m.
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"I'm also confident that ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Wales is extremely well-placed to become a significant producer of network output, building on our current success by winning new commissions worth many millions more.
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"The total reinvestment in ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Wales's local and network output could be in excess of £23m.
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"So, there are many opportunities for us to be an even more important part of our audiences' lives both in Wales and on the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ networks."
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ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Wales expects to finalise the detail of its restructuring plans by late April.
