The Danish Broadcasting Corporation DR is to let 104 of its employees go, with 67 laid off and 37 having chosen early retirement.

DR News and Current Affairs is to lose eight employees, while 11 others have been offered relocation to other jobs in the news department or elsewhere in the corporation and a further 10 have taken early retirement, according to politiken.dk’s information. A further five posts have been axed.

Several programmes are to be affected, with some programmes axed. Among others the 5 p.m. Deadline programme is to close as is Talent. Forsvundne Danskere (Danes who have disappeared) will be broadcast for the last time in 2011.

“This is an unhappy day at DR and one in which we have to say goodbye to many of our talented employees. But we are in a situation in which we are forced to adapt to a new economic framework for the coming four years – and so it is unavoidable,” says Director General Kenneth Plummer in a news release.

The reason for the round of layoffs is the Media Agreement between the government, Danish People’s Party and Liberal Alliance, under which the public broadcaster has to save some DKK 80 million in 2001 and even more over the following three years.

According to the most recent published figures, and prior to today's annoncement, Danmarks Radio had a total of 3,155 employees in 2009.