The axe swings on

A month barely passes without news of another media outfit in financial trouble. Last week, the BBC announced it would cut 10 percent of its staff, or between 1800 and 2000 positions. The organisation attributed the cuts to cost inflation and declining licence fees, BBC’s main revenue source. Licence fees are paid by individuals to access free-to-air television. Although 94 percent of adults use BBC services every month, the proportion of households paying licence fees has dropped to 80 percent, down from 90 percent. The cause: the accelerating shift to streaming services. The UK government is in the midst of a review of the BBC funding model, but it seems that it has come too late.

Here in Sydney, on a much smaller scale, local outfits are also again under threat. In this week’s newsletter, Monica looks at the announcement by university-run (including UTS) community radio station 2SER that it may have to cease operations.

Turning to a story that has garnered a great deal of attention over the past week, Sacha reflects on the news investigations that led to the arrest of former SAS soldier, Ben Roberts-Smith, on charges of committing war crimes.

Finally, I look further afield to Hungary, where Viktor Orbán lost power after 16 years, in one of the first elections since Meta and Google pulled political advertising from their platforms in Europe.

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