5:51pm Tuesday 2nd March 2010
By Peter Barron
There's been much wailing and gnashing of teeth today over a strategy review of the BBC.
BBC 6 Music and Asian Network are facing closure and half the websites on BBC online are also scheduled to close by 2013.
The broadcasting workers' union Bectu predicts that 600 jobs will be lost.
But from a local newspaper perspective, we should welcome the BBC's firm undertaking not to introduce news services at a more local level than currently exist.
The Beeb has pledged to curtail is localisation plans to allow local newspapers "room to develop their digital services".
If independent local newspapers are to survive in the digital age, the BBC could not go on competing with the unfair advantage of public cash from the licence fee.
I'm still concerned that the 79-page review states: "Local websites will be refocused, meanwhile, to carry only news, sport weather, travel and local knowledge content."
But the local newspaper industry will just have to be vigilant to ensure that the BBC sticks by its commitment to prevent itself from becoming any more local than it already is.
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