Holiday disruption

Media reporter Neil Midgley has gone firm with a rumour rocking around for a couple of weeks - that next month BBC News chief James Harding will announce plans to cut 500 jobs (from 8,000) over the next two years.

This is unconventional choreography. The calendar rhythm of News is to remind people over summer that voluntary redundancy may be on offer; announce cuts (for the following financial year) in October; proceed through strike/strike threats, which end before Christmas; then reveal sometime in the New Year that resettlement and deals have dealt with the problem for another year. Then repeat.

500 jobs represents around 6% of the workforce, and headcount and costs usually line up quite closely. Saving 3% is pretty much what's been happening every year for a decade - but putting two years together makes it look scary. Unless Jim has got a Big Idea, most staff will expect continuing salami cuts; sadly, in many areas, it'll be hard to get the slicer close to the tiny amount of flesh still remaining on the bone

The unions, already pretty het up over a miserly pay offer, will leap on a July announcement, and give the management real jitters with strikes that might, for example, fall in the run-up to the Scottish referendum. August is a month when most News managers are cleaning Factor 30 off their BBC iPads by the pool, moaning about the weakness of the villa's WiFi.  Watch for discreet management training sessions on all the gizmos in Dr Evil's Volcano News Lair from now on...