The BBC plans to cut up to 2,000 jobs from its 21,500 full time equivalent staff headcount, to tackle “significant financial pressures”.

Britain’s public service broadcaster needs to make £500 million worth of savings over the next two years.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Media Show, interim director general Rhodri Talfan Davies told Katie Razzall and Ros Atkins he could not rule out axing entire channels or services.

“We need to look at everything, and at a scale of £500m inevitably there are going to be some big and some difficult choices, but we do need to step through this carefully.”

More details will be available later this year about how BBC services would be affected.

“For audiences, the job in hand now over the next three or four months is to work through how we make those changes without damaging the services that we know are critical to the BBC across radio and television and online,” he said.

Davies will not be in the chair when the cuts are decided, with a new Director General soon to join the British national broadcaster. Former Google executive Matt Brittin will take over from the the previous DG, Tim Davie, on 18 May.

The BBC is currently negotiating with the government about its future, and that of the licence fee, ahead of the renewal of its royal charter at the end of 2027.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said the BBC, “like every institution”, has to make “difficult decisions”.

Davies acknowledged that the job cuts would be “really difficult news” for staff.

Philippa Childs, head of broadcasting union Bectu, warned that “cuts of this magnitude” will be “devastating for the workforce and to the BBC as a whole.”