BBC "deficit" may lead to job losses

A reported £200 million budget deficit may force the BBC to lay off large numbers of staff.
News and current affairs are in the frontline for job losses, but BBC management have ordered a tightening on costs right across the corporation.
Some departments have already been told to halt recruitment, while others are also being forced to introduce job cuts, according to The Guardian. News and current affairs executives have been told that a recruitment drive planned for the World and 24 hour services are to halted as Greg Dyke, the BBC's director general, believes that staffing levels are too high and must be reduced to a sustainable long-term level.
The £200m anomaly in the corporation's finances arises from an obscure BBC accounting privilege, which allows it to borrow centrally against the BBC's assets. This cash has been used historically to smooth out budgetary peaks and troughs between one accounting period and the next.
(GB)