BBC Radio York journalists strike over cuts to local radio shows

Members of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) across the country began the strike at 11am today (Wednesday, March 15), and will protest until 11am tomorrow morning.

The strike is in protest over proposed cuts to local radio shows.

The BBC has said plans to invest money saved from local radio into digital programming. 

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The industrial action coincides with the national strikes of junior doctors, teachers, civil servants, train staff and London underground staff this week.

In York, the protest is taking place outside the BBC Radio York offices in Bootham Row.

Richard Staples, the NUJ representative for BBC Radio York said: "We're striking against the BBC's proposals to stop afternoon, weekday evening and weekend shows to invest all that money into digital programming.

"They say it's not going to threaten jobs, and we're not against the idea of doing more digital, but we think losing all that local radio is not fair on the listeners and the staff that want to carry on doing those programmes.

"It's affecting the 5.7 million listeners, all 39 local radio stations and a dozen regional TV outlets across the country - so there will be no Look North on tonight. 

"This is not for money, this is for the listeners, we are concerned about keeping our audiences and taking them with us into the digital world."

A BBC spokesman said the broadcaster plans to modernise local services, including more news journalists and a stronger local online service, "which will see no overall reduction in staffing levels or local funding".

Jason Horton, director of production for BBC Local, said: "We’d like to apologise to our audience for the disruption that this action will cause to the BBC’s local TV and radio services in England.

“We will of course continue to engage with the trade union and do everything possible to minimise the impact on colleagues affected by our planned changes.

“We are maintaining overall investment and staffing levels in local services and we’re working hard to minimise the risk of compulsory redundancies.

“But change is essential. If our local services are to remain relevant in an increasingly online and on-demand world of live and increasing on-demand services, we must change.”

The BBC has previously said that due to a freeze in the licence fee and inflation it faces a £400 million funding gap by 2026/2027 and must make savings.

Some 382 jobs at the service are being lost as part of plans to move to a digital-led offering, it was announced in September.