BBC Radio 4’s consumer rights show You and Yours is to be axed after more than 50 years, becoming one of the latest victims of the corporation’s £500m cuts plan.

The programme, once described by the former Radio 4 controller Mark Damazer as “one of the most important” on the station, is one of a handful to be cut as the BBC searches for shows that can be more easily adapted as podcasts.

Radio 4’s Thinking Allowed, Free Thinking and The Artificial Human will also end, to be replaced by two as yet unnamed weekly programmes that will run all year round. One will cover “the ideas shaping our lives and the wider world”; the other will examine the impact of technology and AI.

Their schedules and subject matter have been chosen to allow them to work as regular podcasts as the BBC attempts to reshape its content for the podcast boom.

Meanwhile, the Radio 4 programmes Start the Week and In Our Time will expand to an hour to increase the corporation’s coverage of “ideas and technology”, seen as the most in-demand podcast topics.

The changes follow an instruction from Matt Brittin, the BBC’s director general, that the broadcaster should move away from content that can work only on a single platform.

You and Yours, which has investigated consumer concerns since the 1970s, will be one of the highest-profile victims of the cuts, alongside another Radio 4 show, The World Tonight, which will close next spring.

The BBC said the You and Yours team was already developing a refreshed consumer programme “designed to work both on air and on demand that builds on Radio 4’s tradition of original reporting, practical advice and holding organisations to account”.

There will also be an overhaul of its countryside coverage. The magazine show Open Country will end but Farming Today’s weekend edition will be expanded.

Elsewhere, BBC Radio 5 Live will reduce spending on sports podcasts from next year to make way for new shows.

Jonathan Wall, the director of BBC Sounds, says commissioning fewer programmes would allow the broadcaster to focus investment on priority shows. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

The BBC is pursuing two big projects simultaneously: it is trying to find £500m in cuts while shifting towards digital content to reflect changing media habits.

However, the closure of You and Yours and The World Tonight has puzzled many senior media figures. Some believe Brittin should have waited to make the cuts until he had completed talks with the government about the BBC’s future funding.

The director of BBC Sounds, Jonathan Wall, said commissioning fewer shows would allow the broadcaster to focus investment on priority programmes and “make our best shows work across broadcast, on demand and different formats”.

“That means accelerating growth on our own digital platforms and reaching more people, beyond the BBC, while maintaining the strength of Radio 4 and 5 Live, the country’s two biggest speech radio stations,” he said.

“These are difficult decisions, and they are not based on cost alone. We need to make significant savings while investing for the future. I am extremely grateful to the teams behind the programmes affected and we will support colleagues and work closely with unions throughout consultation.”