The BBC warned the Chancellor that it would have to close television channels BBC Two and BBC Four if the Government failed to offset the cost of providing "free" TV licences to the over-75s.
Those are just some of the claims made in a forthcoming book, The BBC Today: Future Uncertain, written by former BBC journalist Ray Snoddy.
The Corporation also warned George Osborne that a £750m black hole in its finances would force the closure of several BBC Local Radio stations, as well as its national radio news services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The BBC's Director General, Tony Hall, threatened to overshadow the Chancellor's summer budget by deliberately announcing service cuts at around the same time.
Having issued this ultimatum, Hall and Rona Fairhead, the Chair of the BBC Trust, went to visit Mr Osborne and, according to Snoddy, suddenly found him "in a very constructive mood".
Perish the thought that these cuts did go ahead. I'm not sure how we'd ever be able to survive without gardening programmes and traffic reports from BBC Radio Wherever.
Read more on this at The Guardian.
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