More BBC job cuts

BBC News has announced 108 job cuts with BECTU members making up around 50% of the total.

BECTU has said it will be prepared to take industrial action if any member faces compulsory redundancy as a result of the third year of Director General Mark Thompson's cuts in BBC News.

The cuts are meant to save around £11m and come on a day when the BBC has announced new channel idents for BBC1 which have cost £1.2m.

BECTU supervisory official Luke Crawley said: "This shows a failure of the BBC to set its spending priorities.

"Cutting more than 100 jobs in News, in addition to the 320 jobs which have gone in the last 18 months, means there will be less staff to make programmes.

"The money spent on the new idents could have paid for at least 30 staff to help maintain BBC programmes standards. It is the quality of the programmes that keeps the licence fee payers watching not new channel idents."