Episodes of The Papers to end on BBC News channel

The last episode of BBC News programme The Papers will air on Monday, the corporation has announced.

The regular segment, which sees guests review daily front pages alongside BBC journalists, has been scrapped as part of the broadcaster’s plans to focus on “digital first” content.

Instead, BBC TV and radio programmes and websites like BBC Breakfast, Radio 4’s The Today Programme, Politics Live, Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg and BBC News Online will feature paper reviews and stories.

The BBC said in a statement: “We think it is important to feature newspapers and will also continue to invite editors and journalists from across the industry to discuss the news and important issues of the day across the BBC channels.”

The corporation previously announced BBC World News and BBC News Channel will merge to create a single 24-hour TV news channel serving both UK and international audiences.

BBC Four and CBBC will also end as linear TV channels.

The BBC also plans for local radio stations to share more content and broadcast less programming unique to their areas.

Proposals confirmed by the broadcaster include the loss of 48 jobs across local staffing in England, amounting to a total reduction of 2%.

The plans will see local programming restricted to weekdays before 2pm and the BBC will produce 18 afternoon programmes across England that will be shared between its 39 stations.

Ten local programmes will then be shared between 6pm and 10pm on weekdays, all day on Saturday and on Sunday mornings, serving areas broadly mirroring existing local TV areas.

In September, the BBC announced that 382 jobs at the World Service will be cut.

The BBC needs to save a further £285 million in response to the announcement in January that the licence fee will be frozen for the next two years.

The corporation has delivered more than £1 billion of savings in the five years to 2021/22.

The last episode of The Papers on the BBC News channel will air on Monday January 2 2023.