- Burned out - 26th June 2026
- Water, water NOT everywhere… - 26th June 2026
- Not on the ball… - 25th June 2026
The huge cuts at the BBC (including in News and Current Affairs [NCA]), emphasise how many of the long-form journalistic programmes fronted by our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, have now disappeared and that the corporation in Wales has plunged down-market.
It is a shame that Current Affairs (CA) (in which I specialise) is no longer in fashion and seen as costly.
I have almost lost count of the number of television programmes I have worked on that have either been axed altogether, or suffered swingeing cuts, and this is a pity because, I would suggest, they serve a vital role.
In the past I have presented programmes which secured new evidence leading to the release from prison of men who had been wrongly convicted of murder, exposed questionable police actions, brought out the corruption of businesspeople, and recounted the appalling practices of politicians as well as senior officials.
These facts would not have been put into the public domain without the kind of investigative reporting I undertake, and I endeavour to continue this tradition on The Eye.
Yet the latest round of cuts by Matt Brittin, the BBC’s new Director General (DG), only serves to highlight the way things are going today.
Mr Brittin came in to replace controversial Tim Davie who left after an appalling series of scandals.
In it is revealed how BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight (TWT) is to be axed after more than 50 years, as part of a first round of sweeping cuts that will result in other shows being cut and the departure of hundreds of staff.
The 45-minute news programme, broadcast every weekday evening, is one of the first victims of a savings drive that will also put entire BBC channels and radio stations under review, with as many as 2,000 jobs going (some people being made compulsorily redundant), and trim £500 million over the next three years.
Of course this is not strictly CA but it is a straw in the wind, because these sorts of programmes have either been closed completely, suffered debilitating reductions, or are unlikely to be commissioned as one-offs now unless they are fronted by a celebrity.
The list of casualties at the BBC is depressingly long.
Assignment, Rough Justice, Public Eye (PE) (on which I have worked), have gone completely, while Panorama (P) (on which I have also worked) has NO dedicated reporters, when in fact CA reporting is TOTALLY different to news!
P tries to be upbeat about this awful state of affairs, and an AI overview of it says: “BBC Panorama relies on a flexible roster of investigative journalists and reporters rather than a single regular host”.
For ‘flexible’ read that there are no reporters on the programme that specialise only in CA.
When I left PE there was a lot of official talk of how it would not go altogether, but be replaced by Public Eye Investigates (PEI). Naturally, PEI was never heard of again…
Other broadcasters within the BBC have not been immune either.
For 10 years I hosted the regular Welsh TV CA programme BBC Week In, Week Out (WIWO), but after more than 50 years it was dumped, to be replaced by BBC Wales Investigates.
Yet this is not a regular weekly series at all, it only looks at individual controversies as and when they arise!
Perhaps I need to become a celeb, and not just an ordinary journalist – I might be commissioned to do programmes then…
Truths like these by Phil, who was gripped by the rare neurological condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now!
It includes many of the issues revealed by him during his 23 years with the BBC.
