Wonder what you make of the news that the BBC spent thousands of pounds in licence fee payers’ cash entertaining an astonishing 170 guests at Wimbledon?
“The corporation lavished £81,000 on a three-day hospitality event at this year’s championships, equal to almost £500 a head. The gathering was hosted by Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons and trustee Diane Coyle, the wife of BBC reporter Rory Cellan-Jones. They were treated to what was acclaimed as the ‘best-ever Wimbledon final’.The broadcaster’s Wimbledon entertaining budget included a £53,528 bill for ‘marquee and associated costs’ and another £18,281 for hospitality. So now you know how your money is being spent.”
Still, I bet the champagne and strawberries were most enjoyable….
Done correctly corporate hospitality can win better contracts with third parties (i.e. a net benefit for the taxpayer) so I think the Mail’s tone (as ever) is a bit disingenious, right up until the point where it becomes clear that this is the BBC Trust (rather than the purchasing department) “meeting a wide range of people, from members of the general public to representatives from the broadcasting industry and other organisations”. Who do they think they are, the f**king Queen?
Cockney | 09.10.08 – 9:10 am | #
Agree, with a qualifier.
Because my first thought was to wonder just how many were there to watch the tennis and how many to simply suck up and schmooze. Until recently that may have been fine, if sickening, for an independent bank. Not so much the BBC, though. IMHO.
And if they are ‘doing business’, are they buying or selling? If it is not a staff jolly, where I come from you only blow such money to make it.
Don’t people come to the BBC to try and make a score of the £3.5B, 60M audience and worldwide access? They should be the ones throwing the party!.If it is the other way (and I know there is, and maybe even has to be, and aspect of that), is this not a sorry further sign of the creeping, one-way commercial intrusions Aunty is making. What next? No one attends a legitimate business launch because the public have pony’d up for an event they a) would be booted out of and b) may be to help promote something directly competitive?
Since when did I authorise such use of funds via my licence fee?
Between the antics of the Labour Party, their camp followers and cheerleaders in chief, this getting to be like a mix of the Last Days of the Raj and the bunker behaviour of the Fall of Berlin.
And are they all intermarried?
Makes the Ancient Egyptians look positively socially well-adjusted and the souls of anti-nepotistic probity.
At least this explains how Rory Cellan-Jones gets to keep his job, neat move to marry a trustee. Wonder if he’s related to James Cellan-Jones?
Perhaps it was for the benefit if the Lesbian lawn tennis club of great britain with guest speakers virginia wade and the other racket wielding dyke? at least that way a minority was represented at the tax payers cost !! nudge nudge wink wink !
Watever next at our expense.
Wasnt this thing carried by Al Beeb in the first place? If so, then why did they have to even pay for the entertaining? Should it not have been part of Al Beebs sponsorship deal?
Mailman
Possibly explains why the Beeb’s dropped cricket in favour of Wimbledon and F1 – the goodies are so much better.
Does the £81 k include coke and rent boys ?
Anyway, it won’t happen next year, as the BBC will be hit by the recession just as much as the rest of us, so they will have to make savings, won’t they, and jollies are an obvious cost saving ?
From Guido:-
BBC comment on worst ever monthly goods trade deficit since records began in 1697:
“UK’s trade gap narrows slightly”
citywire.co.uk reported:
“UK trade deficit widens as forecasts are revised”
Thank jehovah for the BBC, the very best of Britishness(perfidy).
Just like the school teachers who close schools go to Spain for seminars at the tax payers expense and are baffled when taxpayers object. And government that wastes millions. The public sector mentality is that wasting money is not a serious issue. The BBC and it’s privelliged staff will sail through this recession without any belt tightnening.
Speaking of throwing our money around, I was wondering last night why it was necessary for Kirtsty Wark to be in Washington to do a piece for Newsnight on the McCain Obama debate.
I thought they had lots of Beebies in the US already. Just how many of them are there?
So what did Kirsty’s little trip cost and what did it add that the Beebies already in situ couldn’t have done?
…what did it add that the Beebies already in situ couldn’t have done?
Millie Tant | 09.10.08 – 1:23 pm | #
It added CO2 to the atmosphere.
Which tells you how seriously they really take alleged global warming.
D,
The Al Beeb story about the conference is a white herring!
If it was cheaper for the conference to be held in spain then so be it.
All schools can close for a number of “inset” days, which this was one of.
And that bit about tax payers, those teachers are tax payers too…so they were essentially paying for their own trip 🙂
However that is all now ancient history because the conference was cancelled the morning they were meant to leave, which one would suspect a certain amount of money would have been lost.
Chalk one up for Al Beeb over teachers!
Mailman
Millie Tant:
As they say here the States “Do the math”.
1 x return business class air fare (purchased thru “internal BBC channels” but still expensive.)
1 x week hotel bills. Kirsty Wark is considered an “A”-list presenter so she’ll not stay in a cheap motel.
1 x weeks food. (I’ve never seen a presenter/producer/executive order a cheap bottle of wine)
And ask this question: does she have her own producer with her…”can’t trust the BBC America crowd, different department, old chap”)
I’m assuming a team of three people. (presenter/producer/researcher) Conservatively, I’d estimate Wark’s trip to the USA costing 20,000 (GBP)
The problem is that departments are involved in turf wars. They don’t trust each other. It’s also about ego, status and pride. This is the result of an organization grown too old, too flabby, with not enough real scrutiny. Fat cats are found everywhere: not only in the alleys of Wall Street and Government.
I once attended a county cricket one-day semi-final (in England) and counted four TEAMS of people (2 local radio stations, one R3 team and one world service – not forgetting the chap who provided 30 second inserts into R4 news. Remember they were all reporting on the same game.
How many political correspondents/reporters/presenters can be seen at news conferences? And I haven’t even started on “corporate” events. The waste is amazing!
Personally I’d prefer that they were simply p*ssing my money away in Wimbledon harmlessly rather than actively propagating their left-wing poison. Good grief, I’d had no trouble paying my TV tax if it would keep them harmlessly unemployed for life. Money well spent.
When the BBC sports dept moves to Salford the BBC can send some cameramen and a commentator to Wimbledon and hold the Wimbledon hospitality event on the bonny banks of the Manchester Ship Canal. The local chip shops, kebab shops and Bargain Booze off-licences will be able to the catering for a very reasonable price.
RR: So right. Why would the BBC want TEst Cricket? Thos eonly place they get to travel to is London, Birmingham, Nottingham, Manchester and Leeds.
Not very excisting. With F1 the Socialists can smooze away in Monoco, Australia, Japan, Singapore and so on.
I hear there’s a better class of rent boy available around the world?
Mailman
The most obvious and least expensive place to hold a teacher seminar is the School. But the teachers expect plush conference facilities and Spain was the cheapest then following the warped logoc Spain was the only option. Your argument about the teachers being taxpayers therefore they have paid for their own trip is cobblers. I think you must be a teacher. Your argument is the public sector logic which comes from the world of Alice in Wonderland.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/
“The BBC Trust works on behalf of licence fee payers: it ensures the BBC provides high quality output and good value for all UK citizens and it protects the independence of the BBC”.
Imagine if the oil/energy companies were caught entertaining their regulator at lavish cost at exclusive events.
I just love their excuse: “The BBC Trust holds a variety of events each year to meet a wide range of people, from members of the general public to representatives from the broadcasting industry and other organisations. This includes providing hospitality at Wimbledon and the Proms.”
What a way to represent the interests of the licence payers, rushed past the general public to the elite hospitality section! What good value for UK citizens. Must be the only way to monitor the BBC’s “high quality” output and “independence”.
What the hell would the BBC want to entertain people at Wimbledon for? Standing around all day on a windy platform watching tube trains come and go. What’s entertaining about that?
And if they paid £81,000 for it, then they must have bought a Travelcard from a ticket tout. So they deserved what they got.
I bought a ticket from a ticket tout once. And six years prior to that, I’d had the chicken pox. So it just shows you can’t be too careful.
I would agree with you Kill the Beeb, but I’ve been barred from posting.
Strawberries were a little ripe.