LONDON - The BBC said on Thursday it was set to become "significantly smaller" after Britain's cash-strapped government imposed deep spending cuts on the world-renowned, publicly funded broadcaster.

The world's biggest broadcaster set out the changes in response to a 20 percent cut to its annual 3.5 billion pound ($5.4 billion) budget imposed by the government a year ago as it planned the deepest public spending cuts in decades.

"By 2016, the BBC will be significantly smaller than it is today," it said.

With eight national TV channels, 50 radio stations and an extensive website, the BBC's size and resources had already attracted envy and criticism from rivals, led by James Murdoch at BSkyB .

That had also increased in recent years as advertising-funded rivals like ITV suffered in the recession.

Under the new plans, the corporation will cut 2,000 jobs, reduce the budget for buying sports and other rights, slash the number of senior managers and share more content between its different services and show more repeats. Property in west London will also be sold.

The changes will result in savings of around 670 million pounds a year by 2016/17.