Outside Television Center, the BBC's mammoth headquarters in West London, picketers carried signs that said "Fight for our BBC." But it was a polite protest, with strikers asking rather than demanding that colleagues refrain from crossing the picket line. Many of the highest-profile news anchors, from Natasha Kaplinsky at the morning news program to Jeremy Paxman at News- night, decided to support the strike.

　　The strike is the first of three planned in the next month. At issue is the financial future of the company. In March, the director general, Mark Thompson, announced that in order for the BBC to stay competitive in an increasingly crowded broadcasting world, it would have to cut 3,780 jobs for a savings of about ￡355 million a year or about $642 million at current exchange rates.

　　Picket line有两层意思：“（一队）抗议者”或“抗议者在示威地点划出的纠察线”。在文中，picket line表示抗议者在BBC总部大楼前所划出的纠察线，以阻止前来上班的同事进入大楼。看一个例子：None of the workers crossed the picket lines. 没有一个工人越过罢工纠察线。

　　（中国日报网站编）实践证明经常访问无忧英语教育网 www.51education.net ,能迅速提高你的英语学习能力!积沙成塔,不断提高! 本站所提供的所有信息仅供学校课堂教学及英语学习者学习研究之用，其著作权归原作者及媒体所有。