BBC to announce further cuts to output with redundancies possible

Freezing of licence fee means the broadcaster, which has already lost 1,200 staff, must cut programmes

The BBC is preparing to announce further cuts to its output before the end of the month, with the corporation's staff waiting to see whether their jobs will be on the line.

The public broadcaster has already undergone multiple rounds of redundancies and cuts over the past decade as a result of continuous below-inflation licence fee increases. It now needs to find a further 285m in savings as a result of the announcement in January by Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, that the licence fee would be frozen at 159 for the next two years.