The BBC has announced it will be cutting its Radio division’s staff by 15% by 2017. The British media behemoth, funded principally by a license fee charged to British taxpayers which brought in £3.6 billion in 2012/13 (as well as an additional £1.4 billion through ancillary sources like BBC Worldwide), is under orders to bring costs down across the company.

In addition to the staffing cuts, BBC will also create two management ‘hubs’ for its radio division, one for its pop-angled stations Radio 1, Radio 2, 1Xtra, 6 Music and the Asian Network, and the other for classical and talk stations Radio 3, Radio 4 and 4 Extra.

The hubs are intended to streamline and consolidate management between the stations, which will still maintain “each station’s culture and distinctiveness,” the BBC said in its statement.

“BBC Radio is the envy of the world and our creativity is second to none,” said BBC Radio direction Helen Boaden stated. “But we must also be as small as we can be, to meet our savings challenges and increase our agility in the digital world without losing our distinctiveness or damaging relationships with our many audiences.”

BBC Radio 1 was named an International Power Player by Billboard last year.

[Billboard]