BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten is expected to intervene in the Corporation’s cost-cutting process to prevent a £15m squeeze on local radio services and the redundancy of 280 staff.

Patten will ask Mark Thompson, the Beeb’s director-general, to find the savings elsewhere after plans to merge neighbouring stations’ off-peak programmes were met with widespread criticism.

Patten also wants a reprieve for regional TV, with BBC1′s regional current affairs programme, Inside Out, facing a 40 per cent cut to its £5m annual budget, which could see 40 of its 100 staff offloaded.

But with the licence fee frozen at £145.50 until 2017, the cuts will have to come from somewhere. (Source: MediaGuardian)

UPDATE: Patten said today (25 Jan) that his request to protect local radio, regional current affairs such as BBC1′s Inside Out programme, would cost the BBC “no more than £10m” a year, suggesting a compromise on what originally amounted to £18m of savings. (Source: MediaGuardian)