Does £4.7bn a year BBC really need to cut Nato and Davos coverage?

Terrified of falling victim to the Government’s new age of austerity the BBC is going to try very hard to give the impression that it is down to its last few quid over the next few months.

The Corporation has a vast communications operation largely dedicated to defending the compulsory licence fee and the BBC’s guaranteed £3.5bn a year income. Chief executive Mark Thompson seems to expend a lot of his efforts doing this too.

So am I the only person who is a bit skeptical about the Jon Williams memo saying the £100,000 cost of covering the Chile mine disaster would mean cutbacks (The Guardian) on coverage of the Nato summit in Lisbon and the World Economic Forum in Davos?

This is an organisation, afterall, with a total income (including the commercial wing and World Service) of £4.7bn a year. Does it really need to make cuts to the reporting of vital world news events?

Or is this merely a bit of a budget sabre-rattling from a senior exec, which – in the current political situation – BBC bosses are not unhappy to see reported more widely?