BBC radio on the road to cost reductions but some gaps remain

More trouble for the BBC this afternoon as the National Audit office is blocked from gaining information on how much its radio presenters are paid.

According to Ft.com

The NAO report found a great disparity between the costs of BBC and commercial radio programme-making, and said the publicly funded broadcaster could do more to reduce its in its £462m total radio budget

.but

it added that it could not make a full study of the situation because of the demands of the BBC Trust, the corporation’s governing body which actually commissioned the report.

The report ,commissioned by the BBC Trust,found that

BBC Nations and Network radio achieved savings of £11.7 million by 2007-08 against a target of £11.6 million

but recommended that it should

explore with commercial radio stations how they might establish benchmarking arrangements to identify where and how savings can be made

Tim Burr, Comptroller and Auditor General, said:

“The BBC has already achieved savings in radio production across its Network and Nations radio services and has plans in place to make further savings. But the BBC needs a better understanding of why the cost of producing similar programmes on its different radio stations varies so widely.”