The BBC has started to outline a few areas that might have to be cut as a result of its recent licence fee settlement. Unfortunately, it’;s not clear as yet whether as these are genuine proposals, or a PR initiative designed to elicit sympathy for its plight from the TV-watching public.

For example, there is talk of the corporation giving up its live coverage of Formula One and Wimbledon. While this is a move that would save huge sums at a stroke, it is highly unlikely that the corporation would give up a major summer event like Wimbledon (though ditching F1 seems possible).

That said, it’;s clear the BBC is going to have to make some very difficult decisions if it is to achieve the 20% cutback that the settlement demands. For example, one proposal on the table is for huge cutbacks in local radio, which would see everything except breakfast and drive-time shows replaced with content from BBC Radio 5 Live. Other aspects of local content that could suffer include regional shows for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the English regions.

It’;s not just areas like sport and regional programming that are under threat. With the BBC also under pressure to reduce its reliance on lifestyle shows, there have been suggests it could fill BBC2 daytime with rolling news. Again, this would lead to significant savings but wouldn’;t be welcomed by producers either in-house or in the independent sector.