At the end of March 2014 it is proposed that the two specialist broadcast journalists who currently provide national and international material for BBC English Regions African Caribbean and Asian programmes (BBC UK Black and Desi Download) will be cut to just one role serving African Caribbean, Asian and also Chinese programmes. The single role will also be based in Birmingham.

BBC UK Black teams now fear that the proposed cuts will have a serious impact on their programming in the following ways:

Around 75% of the African Caribbean UK population is based in London, having a single role based in Birmingham will remove the ability to respond to important news stories affecting our communities.

If one role is now feeding material into three separate community specialist groups, our programmes will receive less support than is currently provided; meaning the onus will fall on an already stretched, part-time UK Black programme to work longer hours to keep the standard and quality of content at the same level.

At a time when our programmes are being asked to provide an increasing amount of specialist news, losing the only dedicated, full-time journalist focusing on issues affecting black Britain will reduce our ability to respond to stories in an effective way, and remove a career enhancing opportunity for future black journalists.

After enjoying almost three decades of success over at the BBC, comedian/actor Lenny Henry is NOW actively chairing committees, speaking out at conferences and calling for racial quotas to increase racial diversity in the creative industries. But his words seem to be falling on deaf ears.

The BBC and their highly suspect “proposals” – TYPICAL.

I will be paying close attention to this developing situation….