Well now, at this time of looming economic recession, when the Great Leader himself is forced to admonish us proles to consumer rather less and reduce our wastage of food (Before tucking into his 8 course banquet at the G8 Meeting, natch!) how do those guardians of public broadcasting at the BBC respond to these tough times? Well, by awarding themselves 17% pay increases, that’s how! Mark Thompson, the Director-General, and nine other BBC bosses earned £4.96 million in 2007-08, up from £4.25 million the previous year. Most BBC employees took home 4% increases over the same period. Given the cutbacks in the private sector over the past year, I would like to know on what grounds the BBC fat cats get that much more bloated and even the workers ants get their inflation busting 4%? I mean, how can they afford it? Oh yes, I forgot, they just rip us off. Money for old rope – let’s hope it’s a rope to hang these parasites.
LET THEM EAT CAVIAR.
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What you neglect to mention is that BBC staff are getting only 2 per cent this year, as part of a two-year pay deal agreed last year. Which is pretty much in line with the rest of the public sector.
Your comments about bosses’ pay are pretty much spot-on, however.
BJ,
Any idea what staff have received over the past five years?
Yes, because I have been on the staff of the BBC for the past five years. Before last year, I can’t recall getting more than 3 per cent in any one year. Last year’s deal was the first time a two-year package had been offered.
Oh — I’ve just checked and in 2003 we got inflation plus 0.5%, which equalled 3.8%
Money for old rope – let’s hope it’s a rope to hang these parasites.
I think the word you’re looking for is incitement.
Do you ever read what you have written?
And since this site is fond of lecturing the rest of creation about its moral failings, in what moral universe is it OK to call for the lynching of identifiable individuals….?
Individuals against whom your primary complaint is not murder, terrorism or rape. It’s an economic disagreement about the funding of public broadcasting…
Biased BBC: Like a lynch mob. Only madder.
Mrs Rooney’s Noose:
I see you appear to approve of the both the grotesque overpayment of undistinguished public servants and hanging if only for murder, terrorism and rape. Honestly dear with the money they get you’d think they could afford better PR than you.
Some of the BBC’s most senior executives have been awarded pay rises of more than £100,000 in a year when the corporation has been dogged by fakery scandals and job cuts
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2268084/BBC-executives-awarded-pay-rise-of-more-than-and163100%2C000.html
Time to make it pay per view.
If you love the BBC then pay to view it.
If you loathe it then don’t pay and don’t watch.
Seems fair to me. Either way, the licence tax is no longer sustainable for this bloated and grotesque organisation.
Of course the BBC trolls and various hangers-on will bleat about that.
In Ed Balls words, ‘So what’. Come into the real world.
BJ | 08.07.08 – 1:48 pm |
“What you neglect to mention is that BBC staff are getting only 2 per cent this year, as part of a two-year pay deal agreed last year. Which is pretty much in line with the rest of the public sector.”
What you neglect to mention is that BBC staffers have seen employer pension contributions jump from 7.5% in 2007 to 19.35% today.
A 2% wage increase plus a 11.85% pension increase. So much for public spending restraint!
I see Hillhunt is back again!
i say, i’d pay the licence fee for radio 4 alone. Outstanding value for money
The Beeb backed up the PMs comments with a trip to the tip, whilst the ITN ran a report on how government-backed biofuels were burning up all our food.
Do you think that the simultaneous departure of the Beeboids from this site had anything to do with the “throw caution to the winds” bias now emanating from the Beeb as they desparately try to keep Labour in power? If they had stayed here they would be defending the totally indefensible, so one presumes they were forewarned that the Beeb were no longer even going to try to keep up any kind of pretence of being unbiased.
The Beebs only chance of staying on the state teat is to keep the Tories out, and now they are pulling out all the stops. No point in them trying to placate the Biased BBCers now. It’s a do or die, all or nothing approach from the BBC, and we can look forward to things really hotting up over the next two years.
Given the cutbacks in the private sector over the past year…
No cutbacks in private sector broadcasting.
Last year ITV’s chief exec was paid £2 million • a million of that was a performance bonus in a year when (believe it or not) the company’s share price went down 40%.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/may/15/itv.mediabusiness1
Meanwhile, over at channel 4, the chief exec saw his pay hiked to £1.2 million. Since Thompson did that job before being ‘promoted’ to Director General at the beeb, no wonder he feels underpaid!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/apr/23/channel4.television
While the money’s scandalous, it’s the principle of being taxed for the service that goes against the grain, as was pointed out by Sir Anthony Jay (of “Yes Minister” in the days when the Beeb made comedy people laugh at)
on Toady this morning. Will Wyatt was left floundering. Studied silence at the finish.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7494000/7494843.stm
Moonbat Nibbler, where are those figures on pensions from? I don’t dispute them, but only because I don’t know enough about them.
What I do know is that BBC employees’ pension contribution are rising too: from 6% of pay now to 6.75% in April 2009 and to 7.5% in April 2010
The pay is hardly “scandalous”. By any stretch it’s pretty crap. I wouldn’t work in my field for what a Beeboid with similar levels of expertise and experience gets. If you’re gonna complain it’s got to be against the principle of public services in general or specifically public broadcasting funded by a compulsary tax.
Hillhunt,
Have you ever heard of the word “unwanted”? You’re a bore.
Ernst,
If private sector broadcasting want to award themselves 100% pay increases, that’s fine. They either make the profit to fund it or they go bust. The BBC FORCES us to pay for their indulgence AND that is the point here that seems to elude a few.
To the BBC parasites infesting this blog, My heart bleeds for you and if you look close enough into my eye you will see a tear!
How many poor pensioners and struggling families are you freeloaders prepared to steal from to furnish your lavish salaries? But you parasites dont steal it yourself do you? oh no, you get a firm of skinhead ex bouncer thugs to bully people into paying for your lazy nonjobs and your goldplated pensions!
the very next time you whine and whinge about how little money you get, think of all the poor people out there who struggle everyday to pay for your obscene and grubby and dishonest lobbying organ!
BJ, page 117 of the annual report has a neat table:
Click to access bbc_ara_2008_exec.pdf
Employer contributions are 19.35% until 1st of April 2009 when they’re reduced to 18.6%. Then a further reduction to 17.85% from 1/4/2010.
Comparatively ITV employees, who contribute 6%, receive 9% from their employer:
https://www.itv-pensions.com/nonmember/about/cost.asp
Cockney,
17% is an outrage. The workers may have a point on their increase but then again, what about the gilt-edged pension?
Hillhunt’s toyboy
Fine. Pay for it then.
David, I don’t think they have a point at all – they can move on.
The pension scheme is a defined benefit scheme so the amount paid in by the employer is a slave to actuarial valuations of their investment portfolio. It’s not ‘part of the package’ as such which can be compared directly to employer payments made by ITV in terms of the benefit staff ultimately derive.
Still raises the question of why the Beeb still operates a defined benefit for new stuff thus leaving the taxpayer at the mercies of the market.
But their overall package looks pretty crap.
David Vance:
Hillhunt,
Have you ever heard of the word “unwanted”? You’re a bore. Ernst,
The Impotence of Being Ernst!
David Vance:
Have you ever heard of the word “unwanted”? You’re a bore.
Better a bore than a man who issues gleeful invitations to string up a known group of men and women… on the grounds that they disagree with you, ultimately, over taxation.
Delighted, too, to see that not a single member of Biased BBC’s permanently-outraged correspondents is troubled by such behaviour. A credit to the blogging world. No, really.
Makes one almost nostalgic for the carefree innocence of Andrew McCann’s letter-writing, ahem, subtleties.
Biased BBC: Death to all TV licence-chargers.
Mrs Rooney, you’re a loonie.
What happened, Hillhunt, did you lose your superior sense of humor? You’re usually the one chiding us all about being able to understand when one is speaking figuratively rather than literally, and tut-tutting at us about lightening up.
I guess that’s only fun when it’s your turn, eh?
Hillhunt is dead. Long live Hillhunt!!
Dear Hillhunt,
Sorry but I just listening to The Smiths rather excellent “Panic”.. you know the one with the catchy chorus…
“Hang the blessed DG..erm, I mean DJ”? It’s a good one, isn’t it? Then again… Morrissey, me — so many of us with such vivid imaginations, eh?
The only reason I have tolerated your continued presence here is that I look upon you as a sort of circus freak whose lamentable serial defences of the BBC helps build our case further. But to be frank, even the carnival clown needs to move on so take a hike. When you are banned, stay banned.
David Vance:
Then again… Morrissey, me — so many of us with such vivid imaginations, eh?
Excellent point.
Morrissey is a peerless songwriter and performer but…
On factual matters, something is nagging me….
Oh, yes… Judge Weeks describing His Miserableness thus: “(he) did not find giving evidence an easy or happy experience. To me at least he appeared devious, truculent and unreliable.”
I can’t imagine that you would want to be described thus.
Biased BBC: Every Day Is Like….A Lynching
Wonderful to have Hillhunt policing the blog, with comments about the hilariously termed “incitement”. When the BBC go paintballing with ideologues who want to string up homosexualists, behead blasphemers and ban education for women he remains strangely quiet
can somebody at the BBC explain to me why a Director of “Vision” gets over £500,000 per year. what the fuck is that job about?
does she eat magic mushrooms all day?
Bob,
Hillhunt is the new moderator! It’s
a breakthrough!!!
interesting that Hillhunt ventures on this thread to defend inflation busting pay increases for the top dogs at the BBC…
typical socialist hypocrite – big fat pay checks are OK , as long as they’re going to big fat socialists.
with the top dog piggies of the BBC snouting at the taxpayer trough (yum yum) , how come a tiny little magazine like Monocle can do a better job at telling me whats going on in the world, than umpteen thousands of beeboid “journalists”?
if you havent checked out Monocle yet, please do – its what international reportage should be.
http://www.monocle.com/
and no – i’m in no way connected to it. i’m just a bit of fan of it.
Correction:- they did not earn £4.96 million, they were payed £4.96 million. There is a difference.
woops:- paid*, lol. Homer, getting old, nods from time to time
Interesting excuse for the fat-cat wage increases put forward by BBC media correspondent, ‘The tough licence fee settlement means their jobs have got tougher’.
“Nonetheless Ms Bennett’s pay rose from £433,000 to £536,000”
this is the director “vision” – on her watch, the phone-in scandals happened.
in any other industry in the private sector, she would have been fired. instead , in the bbc world – she gets a close to 100k increase.
sorry – forgot to put a url in :
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article4292863.ece
daily mail:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1033291/BBC-executives-caught-fakery-scandals-rewarded-bumper-pay-rises.html
quote:
Among those picking up the biggest increases were Director of BBC Vision Jana Bennett and Head of Audio and Music Jenny Abramsky.
This was despite the fact that both their departments were at the centre of scandals, which enveloped both TV and radio.
Miss Bennett, criticised for her role in the ‘Crowngate’ affair over misleading footage of the Queen, saw her pay go up by £103,000, the BBC annual report shows.
Despite facing calls to resign last year she saw her salary rise 24 per cent from 433,000 to 536,000 in the last financial year, including a bonus payment.
Hillhunt is mentally ill.
The BBC bosses are no better and no worse than the bureaucrat/political fatcats and the fatcats of banking and business.They are all part of an avaricious elite that believes it has a divine right to a nation’s wealth.A bit like the ancien regime of 18th century France and as disdainful of us as that was of the ordinary Frenchman.Increasingly they are despised,not envied but despised.They are rapidly losing all moral authority as they have already lost our respect.I no longer care how much they pay themselves.Their day is ending.As I have said before we are already in the first stages of the counter revolution.Let them keep their vast salaries and their expenses and privileges.A culture that is turning as vicious and randomly violent as ours is has little chance of survival and less of recovering it’s dynanism.The greed of the rich and lawless streets are twin heads of the same decadent body politic.
dave s -> good allegory on pre-revolutionary France.
The BBC reports that I am wasting too much food. I missed the bit where they tols us how much food the BBC throws out from its canteens every day.
A non too reliable spy gave me the menu for their subsidised canteen for seniour staff.
Starter
Organic quail eggs generously sprinkled with organic white truffels
organic Birds nest soup
Fish course
Organic Lobster for maximum freshness flow in on a specially chartered refrigerated plane.
organic Bluefin tuna guaranteed to be from one of the last ten left.
Main Course
Organic Kobe Beef
Organic Beluga Caviar torte.
Wine
House red Chateay Morgaux 1995
House white Montrachet 1978
twenty quid a head reduced to ten for any poor BBC employee, anybody on less than a million a year.
Maybe hillhunt is an employee at the BBC. His reaction to to David Vance’s hyperbole could only come from a Beeboid.
You can complain,I have to live with the ugly old crone.
Has the BBC reported on this anywhere?
Gordon Brown has eight-course dinner before food crisis talks
The banquet was accompanied by five different wines from around the world including champagne, a French Bourgogne and sake.
African leaders including the heads of Ethiopia, Tanzania and Senegal who had taken part in talks during the day were not invited to the function.
The dinner came just hours after a “working lunch” consisting of six courses including white asparagus and truffle soup, crab and a supreme of chicken.
You couldn’t make it up. Other news outlets talk about it, but I haven’t seen or heard this anywhere on the BBC yet. I didn’t catch the World News on the tv this morning, but I didn’t hear it during any hourly news spots before I switched to Radio 3 for Gergiev’s Mahler 5.
The BBC should really hang their collective heads in shame for not reporting this when they have time to report on a not-so-friendly Berlusconi that got reprinted in a US press book that nobody cared about outside of Italian newsrooms.
Has anyone seen or heard a peep out of the BBC? Or mustn’t we soil the image of the summit when there are key bits of the BBC agenda at stake: Global Warming, Food Shortages, Paddington Bear diplomacy for Zimbabwe. Can’t do anything that might detract from the integrity of the summit on these issues.
Ron Todd — that’s the funniest thing I’ve read all day. BBC catering in London is a) contracted out to a private company called Aramark; b) is not subsidised; and c) mostly tastes shit.
There’s no “senior staff canteen”, either. We get pretty standard work canteen fare: fish and chips, jacket potatoes, sandwiches, curry, salads.
Refering to the salary issue on BBC news just now – Jana Bennet the “Director of Vision” was referred to by the newsreader as “Director of Television”
I know we’re all paranoid on here – but it does seem odd that newsreaders don’t know the job titles of their senior managers.
Or could it be that “Director of Vision” is such a daft non-job name somebody decided to disguise it?
David Preiser, if fellow bloggers will forgive me for going off topic, what did you think of Gergiev’s 5th? I always enjoy it whoever does it, totally swallowed up in it. Back to reality – don’t hold your breath about the excesses of the politicians, anyway that’s what they do – do what I say not what I do. I see the last Brownism is that we should all drive hybrid vehicles to cut our carbon emissions. Do you think we ought to point out to him that the energy used in manufacturing these cars probably well makes up for savings made. Nah, the greenies wouldn’t believe it, same as they don’t believe that wind farms are useless eyesores.
Yep — in BBC News we are encouraged to use understandable-sounding language, and not corporate jargon bollocks.