BBC Radio Foyle campaigners protest at planned cuts

Politicians, clergy and community leaders were among about 250 people at a public meeting to protest against proposed cuts to BBC Radio Foyle.

The proposals are part of a wider plan to close 36 posts across BBC Northern Ireland with eight news staff at risk of redundancy at Foyle.

Output including the Breakfast Show and hourly news bulletins would be cut.

In a statement, the BBC said it was “committed to Foyle as a production centre for local and regional content”.

“The savings plans we have announced affect many different people and teams within BBC NI. Our engagement with them is ongoing.”

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) urged the BBC to “rethink its Foyle folly”.

“BBC Radio Foyle matters because community matters,” NUJ assistant general secretary Seamus Dooley told the meeting.

“You join with us as a community rejecting an ill-conceived, half-baked plan which threatens to undermine the essence of the station, its locally-based news service and the morning platform which shapes the day of so many listeners, ” Mr Dooley said.

He added: “We believe that the true value of the output of BBC Radio Foyle’s Breakfast Show and news bulletins is not reflected in the plan”.

Speaking ahead of the meeting, Sinn Féin’s deputy leader Michelle O’Neill said the BBC “must reconsider the decision to cut services at Radio Foyle which will result in job losses and the axing of the flagship breakfast programme”.

Foyle MP and SDLP leader Colum Eastwood, who previously raised concerns about cuts to BBC Radio Foyle at Prime Minister’s Questions, told the meeting at Derry’s Guildhall on Wednesday, that the plans are a “blatant attempt to close Radio Foyle down”.

“We will continue to fight for this station and defend it until the very end,” he said.

DUP MLA Gary Middleton said the city was “united” as a community opposed to the plans for BBC Radio Foyle.

Former BBC Radio Foyle station manager Joe Mahon said at its inception the Derry station was set up to reflect life in an area that “was culturally and geographically distinct” and was considered under served by the BBC at that time.

“I would like to know when that identity has been seen as less strong? It has been strengthened. The decisions that are being made about something as culturally and politically important are ridiculous,” he said.

NUJ president Pierre Vicary told BBC News NI the government’s “continued attack on the licence fee” meant the BBC is operating in a difficult financial climate.

But he said cuts to local radio were not the way to navigate that challenge.

He added: “This is a very coherent, cohesive region, with its own needs, its own people and priorities, that cannot be reflected in Belfast, it needs to be based locally”.

The chairman of the John and Pat Hume Foundation issued a statement calling for the station’s output to be extended.

“Radio Foyle has been continually at the heart of the local community in the north west,” Séan Farren said.

“Government and institutions should be investing in regional services, such as BBC Radio Foyle, and seeking ways whereby its output can be extended and strengthened.”

When the cuts were announced in November, the BBC said its plans “reflect a BBC-wide strategy to prioritise digital content, announced earlier this year, and the need to manage inflationary and other cost pressures”.

“Efforts have been made to limit the effect of proposed changes on the scope and benefits of BBC services in Northern Ireland and local staff teams,” it said.

The interim director of BBC Northern Ireland, Adam Smyth, added that the corporation faced “some difficult choices, none of which are easy”.

“Our concern in all of this will be to safeguard audience value and benefit and to remain mindful of the impact that this announcement will have on BBC staff in Northern Ireland.”

Tributes were also paid at the meeting in the Guildhall to the Derry journalist Brian Hutton who died on Saturday.