The BBC will axe over 2,500 jobs, with news, television production, and regional operations hit hardest by the cuts which will lead to more repeats on BBC Two and the Corporation's digital channels as the broadcaster tries to save £2 billion over the next five years.

Details of the drastic reduction in spending were being given to staff at a series of briefings across the country, with Mark Thompson, the Director-General, saying that he wanted to "move with real speed" to make the redundancies to avoid plunging the Corporation into a long period of uncertainty.

The BBC is to create some new jobs and to offer re-deployment to some of its staff so the net loss of jobs will be 1,800.

The number of programmes made will be slashed by 10 per cent, saving £100 million a year, but Mr Thompson pledged to keep "repeats on BBC One peak time at the current low level". The BBC will instead air more "narrative repeats" in which prime-time BBC One programes like Spooks will be replayed on BBC Two and Three to cut costs.

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The swift cutbacks will almost certainly lead to conflict with the unions. Mr Thompson met senior union leaders in London early today to explain his plans for plugging a £2 billion funding shortfall following a lower than sought for licence fee settlement.

However, union sources said they had not heard anything that removed their fears about the implications for the BBC about the cuts. One official said that he believes the BBC will be sending out thousands of letters to staff tomorrow seeking volunteers for redundancy.

The National Union of Journalists and the broadcasting workers union Bectu has warned of industrial action over the job cuts. The unions will meet later today to decide their reaction to today’s news but some officials believe industrial action will be “inevitable”.

Overall, around 475 to 490 jobs will go in BBC News, around one in six of the workforce, and a further 975 in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and around England. However, jobs created elsewhere reduce the net totals to 355 to 370 jobs will be axed in the BBC news operations and about 510 to 550 across the regions. A further , 640-660 will go in the division which makes factual and other television programmes

Gerry Morrissey, General Secretary of Bectu, said after meeting Mr Thompson that unions were willing to negotiate with the BBC to help make savings.

It was confirmed that the BBC is to sell Television Centre in west London in 2013 where thousands of the corporation’s staff are based. The site, and others nearby, are worth around £300 million, and are no longer required as the Corporation moves large numbers of staff from Salford. The BBC is also cutting 10 per cent from the number of programmes it commissions which will lead to more repeats on television.

It was also confirmed that the corporation is to make efficiency savings of 3 per cent a year.

Sir Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC Trust, said today that the trustees would be making sure that the cuts would not damage the quality or “distinctiveness” of the BBC. But opposition politicans sought to pin the blame on the Government.

Don Foster, the Liberal Democrats culture secretary, said: "The BBC has been put in an impossible position by the Government’s below-inflation licence fee settlement and insistence that the BBC pays for digital switchover. Questions must be asked about the impact of such drastic cuts and whether the right choices over services have been made."

Mr Morrissey warned that strike action was “100-per cent guaranteed” if the BBC went ahead with predicted voluntary redundancies.

He told BBC News 24: “We’re saying we want to enter a meaningful dialogue with the BBC.

That meaningful dialogue cannot take place against the background of the BBC writing out to people, saying come and collect your redundancy cheques.

“If they go ahead with that then strike action, I believe, is 100-per cent guaranteed. “If they pull back from that position, sit down around the table, agree a national framework with the unions, then I believe that this matter can be negotiated properly. That’s in the best interests of the staff, the best interest interests of the licence payer, and at the end of the day the best interests of BBC management as well.”

Jeremy Dear, General Secretary of the NUJ, said after meeting Mr Thompson: “Nothing said today reassures us that the BBC is committed to meaningful negotiations over the changes and we fail to understand how they can claim to be defending public service broadcasting while making the most savage cuts in core news and current affairs areas.

“Unless the BBC reconsiders its position, strike action looks inevitable.”

BBC sport will lose about 20 jobs net and there will be job losses in the Corporation’s online operations. Mr Morrissey said: “The BBC seems hellbent on calling for volunteers for redundancy tomorrow. If they do that we will start a ballot for industrial action.

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