BBC NEWS programmes such as Today, The World at One, and Newsnight are likely to be forced off air on Monday when thousands of employees go on strike in protest at job losses at the corporation.

The disruption will affect much of Radio 4’s morning schedule, including Start the Week and Woman’s Hour, because so much of what is broadcast on the speech station is produced live.

Second-tier television news programmes, such as Newsnight, and Breakfast News, are also almost certain to be dropped from the schedule. Radio 5 Live and the News 24 channel will also be disrupted.

Jeremy Paxman is believed to have told executives that he would not cross picket lines outside Television Centre in West London. He was due to present Monday’s night’s edition of Newsnight. Even if he were willing to work, it appears that the BBC Two flagship programme will not be broadcast because there will be so few production staff.

Jeremy Dear, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, said: “Our expectation of the impact the strike will have is growing by the minute — we have been inundated with requests to join the union. Although there won’t be blank screens or dead air, news and current affairs will be a shadow of what the BBC normally produces.”

Local news output is set to be heavily disrupted by the action, because staff in bureaux across the country are heavily unionised. Only the news bulletins the Six O’Clock News and Ten O’Clock News are expected to be produced in a truncated form, probably with stand-in presenters. Also at risk is live coverage of the opening of the annual Chelsea Flower Show.

The one-day strike comes as BBC staff protest against 3,800 job cuts being proposed by Mark Thompson, the Director-General. He wants to cut out what he believes are inefficiences at the corporation, to boost spending on programming by £355 million a year from 2008.

Employee trade unions, the broadcasting union Bectu, the National Union of Journalists and Amicus, the engineering union, want management to agree to abandon plans for compulsory redundancies and ensure that any staff privatised are given BBC terms and conditions. But their demands have been rejected as impracticable.

A further two-day strike is planned for May 31 and June 1.

In the past, industrial disputes at the BBC have been bitter. Nicholas Witchell was famously branded a scab after agreeing to read the Six O’Clock News on the day of the last high-profile strike in April 1989. He said that, while he agreed with the pay claim, he did not agree with strike action.

Dermot Murnaghan and Natasha Kaplinksy are due to present the breakfast programme on Monday, with George Alagiah and Sian Williams due to host the Six O’Clock News and Fiona Bruce the 10pm bulletin.

The unions will mount picket lines outside BBC centres across Britain.

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