London Live local television station to cut third of staff

Evgeny Lebedev’s struggling London TV station is to cut 20 jobs, around a third of its staff, with the cost-savings to be re-invested in programming content.

London Live, which has found the TV market tough to crack since launching in March, is making the cuts to its news and current affairs team.

“As the business develops, we are able to assess where our resources are best deployed to drive continued growth into the business,” said Tim Kirkman, chief operating officer for London Live. “We are restructuring the news and current affairs team with the proposed loss of a number of roles.”

London Live has struggled with its programming mix, last Monday its schedule showed 20 consecutive repeats, including a listing for The Evening News which had an (R) after it, and in October Ofcom granted the channel permission to reduce its local programming output.

“These funds [saved by cutting headcount] will be re-allocated against new commissions and higher quality acquisitions,” said Kirkman. “It is clear on all our data that Londoners are enjoying this part of our offering which we will continue to improve to drive our overall viewing figures.”

London Live says that its shows were watched by more than 2.3 million adults in December and viewing has doubled since June.

“December was the channel’s best ever month against fierce competition and January has already started significantly better than December,” the company said.

London Live is part of Lebedev’s media portfolio that includes the London Evening Standard, cut -price national the i, the Independent and the Independent on Sunday. The channel had around 60 staff on launch.

It is understood that staff were informed of the cuts on Monday.

Earlier this month, the Standard announced it was cutting at least a dozen editorial roles, which affected a number of veteran staff, in the latest round of cost cuts at the Lebedev-owned titles.

Earlier this month, Chris Blackhurst, the former Independent editor, stepped down from his senior editorial role at the Standard to take a writing role.

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