BBC.co.uk’s baseline budget has risen by half a million pounds, from £133.8 million per year to £134.3 million per year, reflecting a housekeeping change in the way the BBC pays for its property.
The BBC Trust today published revised licenses for all 28 BBC services detailing the 2010/11 budgets for each.
For BBC Online, the new service licence contains no material change from the one drawn up in August 2009. But the budget has risen slightly.
Some services have seen budget reductions after finding savings, but BBC Online is amongst the services that are seeing a total £23 million budget reallocation due to a “planned and foreseen rise in property costs” because, the trust says, the BBC is switching its properties from a freehold to a rent-based, leasehold arrangement.
This doesn’t change anything in the bigger picture. Erik Huggers will still have to make the previously announced 25 percent cut to BBC Online’s budget by 2013.