Sliced

Hard times ahead in BBC Online. The Trust has just published a new service licence, which declares that £120m is all that can be spent on the service in 2011/2 - plus or minus 10%, if they ask nicely.   This is down a whopping 40% from the £199m declared as Online spend in the 2009/10 accounts.   And 25% of the £120m must be spent with external suppliers, in terms of both content and services.

Beyond that, the Trustees have also set limits on spend by area. Audio & Music get £14m, Knowledge & Learning £22m, iPlayer and TV (what happened to 'Vision' ?) £15m, Children's £9m - and the behemoth News, Sport and Weather £43m.  The remainder goes on curating the home page, navigation etc.

There is, of course, much more "spent" on the website unofficially.   Nobody prices blog pieces from Nick Robinson, Robert Peston, etc.  Much more could, and should, be automated.  The BBC has quietly got out of most message boards which require costly moderation.  So while the cuts to achieve this new, lower spend will seem tough, many commercial rivals will look with some envy at the £43m for News, Sport and Weather.  Expect the Mail and News Internationl to be among the first.....