Presenter Amol Rajan has left the BBC after five years on Radio 4’s Today programme, weeks after delivering an extraordinarily stark assessment of his now former employer’s future: “The BBC is screwed.”
Rajan presented his final Today programme this week, having announced in January that he planned to leave the role to “jump into the great digital Narnia of the creator economy” and launch his own company.
His departure comes after he used the Alternative MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival to warn that the BBC faced financial “doom” without urgent action over its funding model.
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During the August lecture, Rajan argued that the continuing decline in the number of people paying the licence fee meant the corporation could not simply cut its way to financial sustainability.
“These cuts are just the beginning; there is worse to come; the finances are much worse than most people even here realise,” he warned.
“What we need is political leadership. This country has new political leadership. I happen to know they are listening. And I have a message for them: Make a decision; stop dithering; this could not be more urgent; and this could be a great legacy for you.”
The comments came against the backdrop of one of the biggest downsizing programmes at the BBC in almost 15 years.
In June, new director-general Matt Brittin announced that around 550 roles would go in the first phase of a wider savings programme expected to ultimately see up to 2,000 jobs disappear.
Around 200 jobs were earmarked to go from BBC News, with 250 posts expected to be cut across Nations and 100 from Content.
The corporation also plans to reduce commissioning spend across Content, News and Nations by around £80m in 2027/28 and review its broadcast TV channels and radio network portfolio.
Six Radio 4 programmes including The World Tonight and The Midnight News were among those facing the axe, alongside the Sunday morning edition of BBC Breakfast. The Today programme was also set to fall from five presenters to four, with a single anchor on Saturdays.
A further 700 corporate roles are expected to go and senior leadership positions are being reduced by at least 10%.
Brittin said at the time that the scale of savings required “requires tough choices”.
“We will reduce commissioning spend across Content, News and Nations by around £80 million in 2027 to 2028 and review our broadcast TV channels and radio network portfolio as audiences move online,” he said.
The plans prompted Bectu chief Philippa Childs to warn that the BBC risked “death by a thousand cuts” without a sustainable long-term funding settlement.
“In an era of fake news and an industry that is becoming more concentrated in the hands of a few multinational corporations, the UK needs a confident, ambitious and sustainably-funded BBC more than ever,” she said.
“The charter renewal must put the BBC’s funding on a secure, long-term pathway or it risks death by a thousand cuts.”
In his Edinburgh lecture, Rajan went further by arguing that the future of the BBC mattered not simply because of its programmes, but because of its historic role in creating shared cultural experiences.
He said smartphones, social media and personalised digital feeds had contributed to a society in which people were increasingly “scrolling alone”.
“Loneliness – or aloneness – used to be an old person thing. Now it’s a young person thing,” he said. “A lot of young people just became extremely online during the last 15 years, and that spiked during the pandemic.”
Rajan argued that BBC programming had historically performed a “bridging” role by giving millions of people common cultural reference points.
“When I was a boy, we used to watch endless sitcoms on repeat, as my parents felt the best way to rub along with people was to laugh with them…
“Only now do I realise that the best thing about these shows wasn’t the writing, or the characters, or the laughs we had at home; it was the fact that decades later, I could still share those laughs with my peers.”
He added: “Screen culture can and must once again aim to unite us; to be the water from our common well.”
Rajan also criticised successive governments for failing to resolve the long-running debate over how the BBC should be funded.
“Have the debate, yes; but then make a strong decision, knowing that the failure to make a decision also has consequences,” he said. “In the case of the BBC, the consequences are clear.”
One potential solution backed by Rajan is transforming the BBC into a mutual organisation or cooperative owned by the British public.
“The BBC is running adverts saying ‘the BBC belongs to all of us’. Under the Mutual model, it actually would belong to all of us.
“If run properly, like all the best Mutuals, the BBC would be tasked with growing revenue. And if some portion of it was available to the right outside investors, the BBC could raise capital that could either be re-invested for the long-term, as with many endowment funds, or deployed in pursuit of growth and a return on that investment.”
He said the idea had support from figures on both sides of the political divide.
“There is this confluence of circumstances,” Rajan said. “A Prime Minister from the Co-operative Party; a Chief of Staff in No 10 who knows the BBC all too well; a Culture Secretary who believes in mutualisation; and people on the Right of British politics who believe in it too.”
Rajan signed off from Today thanking his co-presenter Emma Barnett, his wife Charlotte and his children.
He became emotional as he paid tribute to his father, who died shortly after Rajan joined the programme in 2021, while colleagues gathered in the studio gallery for his final broadcast.
