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from 26 March at an annual cost of £7,000. Because of the
poor audibility of the Malay Service and high cross
listening between Malay and Indonesian, the increase had
been concentrated on the Indonesian Service. The cost of
the increase, mainly for transmission, was low because the
BBC were able to use existing material with minimal extra
staff costs. Noting the relative cheapness of the
Indonesian increase compared to the Pashto, Dr Wilson and
Mr Woolley wondered whether there were other opportunities
for making increases to services with only marginal
increases in costs. It was agreed that the BBC would be
asked about this. The weekly Caribbean Magazine tape had
been increased from 15 to 30 minutes from 23 January at an
extra annual cost of some £16,000. All 17 Caribbean
subscribers had accepted the increased cost of about £100 a year for the tape and were reportedly delighted with it. Dr Wilson's suggestion, it was agreed to try to obtain some
audience feed back from the BBC on the increases in Pashto
and Indonesian.
At
3. Mrs Wright said the BBC had been reluctant to accept
cuts in any services to finance these increases, but had eventually proposed a 15 minute reduction in the German.
Service as a result of which the final evening bulletin and
commentary at 1945-2000 local time would be dropped in the autumn 1986 schedule changes, together with a reduction in
the staffing of the French Service. However, we understood
that the BBC expected to have some extra windfall funds in 1986 from savings being made on common services by the
Corporation as a whole, relief from payment of corporation
tax on royalties, a lower than budgetted contribution to the
Pension Fund and savings as result of falling oil prices.
As a result it was possible the BBC would decide not to cut
the German Service and absorb the cost.
4.
As a result of these changes the Prescription had
increased from 729 to 732 hours a week of broadcasting,
without any cuts being made in services.
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