It’s not JUST MP’s who like to take our taxes and lavish them in entirely unsuitable directions;
The BBC is poised to provoke a fresh row over expenses by refusing to disclose how much its executives spend on entertainment for their stars. Days after MPs caused public outrage by blacking out details of their expenses, the BBC is refusing to reveal how much is spent on hospitality and gifts for its best-paid celebrities.
Ah yes, the old hospitality business. I have to be honest here and say that during all MY time in BBC studios, hospitality has not extended beyond a coffee and a sandwich! (But then again, I’m no star.) So just HOW MUCH is being spent to entertain the celeb culture with which the BBC is so pathetically infatuated?
Coffee???? Sandwiches??????? I can't believe that my telly tax is being blown on such extravagance, and on niche regional stars who I don't even watch?!!!
bet they were prawn too.
"Why politicians vote for BBC licence fee that feeds their hospitality"
'Times',
(-by David Elstein).
"The big numbers in BBC entertaining are not personal, but corporate. How else does the BBC keep hold of its £3.5 billion licence fee income? This is a system decided upon by politicians and voted on by them at regular intervals.
"So the BBC spends a lot of money entertaining them, with lunches, dinners, receptions and — above all — events.
"Nearly every British politician will be wined and dined every year and the most influential will be invited to the big events, such as Royal Ascot and, of course, Wimbledon.
"The lavish production values in the BBC’s coverage of those events are matched by more subtly lavish hospitality.
"Take the Proms. Here you have two months of concerts, heavily subsidised by the BBC, where hundreds of decision-makers and opinion-formers are invited to the BBC’s boxes in the Royal Albert Hall to admire this magnificent festival of public patronage. Canapés, smoked salmon sandwiches and chilled white wine abound: and who can fail to be impressed by the music and the BBC?
"I don’t believe there is any significant level of personal corruption and indulgence. Yes, the chauffeur-driven cars and taxis kept waiting for hours while lunches run late are symptomatic of a cadre of executives who have no problem spending the public’s money. But that is dwarfed by the corporate entertaining. Yet if this were the private sector, how much would you spend to protect virtually your sole source of income?
"Expenses and entertaining are but symptoms of the disease: as long as the licence fee endures, they will never be eradicated." ('Times'.)
("David Elstein is a former chief executive of Five.")
If the BBC had to raise its own money it wouldn't piss it up a wall like it does now.
I wonder if the BBC will tell us how much it spends on rent boys and Cocaine?
I'd always been led to believe that the bbc's heavy expenditure on 'fruit & flowers', was simply provision for those of their celebs who liked to 'powder their noses'.
The BBC is releasing pay levels for top executives. But it is still refusing to release info on the costs of its presenters – except as a total amount for the damn lot of them.
I don't think the BBC will be able to defend this line against more Freedom of Information Act probing. There will be more pushing by the Information Commissioner, and probably more action in the courts.
Continuing resentment about people like Ross will fuel the fire.
'Mail':
"Now BBC executives get chance to 'black out' their expenses before they are made public."
[Extract]-
"The BBC could trigger a new expenses row after refusing to reveal how much top executives spend entertaining its stars with taxpayers' money.
"Bosses at the corporation will not say how much it spent on hospitality and gifts for its best-paid celebrities."
From Our Own Correspondent this morning had an item from Turkey by Nick Higham.
Totally boring, nothing to do with anything in particular.
But hold on – young Nick is the BBC's media correspondent, not a foreign correspondent. So – does this mean we paid for his holiday in Turkey ? Or was Higham volunteering a free story while on his travels, out of the goodness of his heart ?
How many other BBC staff get their costs of holiday travel paid by some BBC cover-story ?
JohnA: quite a few. sky will send ONE reporter to cover a story. The BBC sends an army.
BBC 1 send several
BBC Newnight send their own
BBC News 24 send their own
BBC Radio 4 send their own
BBC Radio 5 send their own
Radio 1 sends a drugged up idiot
BBC World sends their own
I'm sure the Asian Network sends their own
BBC websites will have their own as well
Then we get into the other lot of arts, media, technology, environment and so on.
The list is endless, yet Sky manage with ONE reporter.
BBC having a right field day about "Tory expenses".
Funny that yesterday when two more corrupt Labour MPs were outed the BBC totally ignored the story.
Why the difference? I can't think why 🙂
Regardless of what Mervyn King may say, and whether or not the BBC report his words fully, there is no recession in the BBC nor in the rest of the bloated public sector.
http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/waste/nonjobs/
BTW, Guido mentions that Alistair Darling is a "former Trotskyist". Taking Brown's 11 years as Chencellor and then continuing with Darling, exactly what would Trotskists haev done differently to bring our national finances to the point of collapse? Labour's Marxists aren't 'former' anything: by their policies, they are still Trotskyists, Maoists, Stalinists and whatever form of marxism they adhered to at Uni. These nutters just haven't grown up.
BBC: "Tickets have sold out for 2009 Glastonbury Festival ……If you haven't got a ticket, the BBC will be covering Glastonbury festival in full force on TV, Radio, mobile, red button and online…
£175 for the weekend ticket you will be paying for. Last year BBC apparently sent over 300 staff to (ahem) cover this event of vital national importance.
Wow, love and peace man, thanks for paying for me to see my favourite bands, for nothing, says third deputy sub-editor Giles Twat.
JohnA 11:23
A fair point about Nick Higham.
I just caught part of the piece about Turkey, a country I know very well and have also lived and worked in.
Higham seemed completely unaware of the continued Islamisation of Turkey and seemed to treat what he saw as amusing, even describing the AKP as "moderate". I know what some of my secular Turkish friends would say to that !
In Higham's case , it is probably ignorance coupled with pro-muslim BBC bias, but it certainly fitted the BBC agenda.
Grant
Sounds like the BBC listeners get a raw deal ? We give Higham a free holiday in Turkey, he sends back a five-minute ignorant and inaccurate report ?
I am tending to take a counter-view to everything the BBC"news" side puts out. Unless it is genuinely reporting – ie giving us plain facts, I start from the assumption that any "views" and predictions are the opposite of the truth. Most times this works.
Martin:
The reason why so many reporters are sent to the cover the same event is because the BBC is not, as you may imagine, one entity with a central brain but a host of competing fiefdoms all of whom hate each other and, in some cases, are in bitter competition. This accounts for the enormous waste of resources within the corporation. Often interviewees are bewildered by the host of BBC personnel who descend on them asking the same questions, getting the same answers. I have witnessed occasions when one department of the Beeb has actively subverted another in the interests not of the BBC or the public, but their own boss. Waste flows everywhere in this environment. The BBC is an organisation which has grown too big over the years.
Cockney said…
niche regional stars who I don't even watch?!!!
bet they were prawn too.
8:07 AM, June 25, 2009
Niche regional prawn stars. That's a mind boggler!
But on a more serious note, and keeping the fauna metaphors going, this whole corphosp charade is turning into a right, and nasty can of worms all on its own.
From my private sector ad days, nine times out of ten the only folk involved… other than paying for it… were those signing off on a jolly they fancied.
Thing is, if it's a marketing or managing director* who enjoys rugger or fancies their chances with a celeb in the green room that's between them and the audit guys and/or the shareholders.
With Aunty, it is, of course, different*, and 'unique'.
*Or a DG who needs a quick bung to help the family travel plans along when several hundred thousand salary doesn't quite cover it.
Grant, I also know Turkey very well and you are massively oversimplifying the matter, not to mention the fact that AKP are widely viewed as moderates, so this is a fair statement on his behalf. It should also be remembered that AKP are democratically elected (unlike the Army), have repealed many of Turkey's regressive laws (to the shame of the secular elite who should have long since done this) and as yet haven't made any overtly Islamist reforms. They are one to watch, but as yet I'd be more concerned about the Army's anti democratic tendencies.
Leaving, for a moment, the sending of folk on paid hols to count the number of angels dancing upon a pin based on expert input from guys who may or may not have gone further than Margate to give credence to their claims, here's a link to some facts that may help:
BBC reveals expenses claims for 10 top executives
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=43865&c=1&dsq=11721283#comment-11721283
Engineer says:
June 25, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Isn’t it odd that when anybody does anything slightly novel, somebody else immediately sets themselves up as a consultant on the subject.
The Anti British Broadcasting Corporation – the Front Desk for The Guardian and elements of this rogue government – is an anachronistic nationalised industry packed with the North London Marxist mafia. It is a pit of troughers whose arrogance and disdain for the poll tax paying mugs who keep them in Cuban champagne is both corrupt and sinister.
This organisation loathes most things that the British hold dear and pays homage to a host of nasty little causes, laced with a poisonous political correctness that has infected it’s so-called balance. It’s news gathering is no longer accurate or authentic. It breaks its Charter regularly and is fined repeatedly by Ofcom and WE pay the fines! Your ‘aving a laff, maties…
It is run by commissars, similar to the NuLab special adviser cronies that have dismantled the integrity of our once great Civil Service. They are the last bastian of Liberal Left priviledge and are notorious throughout the media industry for their sense of entitlement and their fiddles. The line of taxis waiting outside Television Centre is testimony to their superiority complex. The BBC is like the Dome under Nude Labour. It’s filled with noxious Orwellian on-message mantras that satisfy only those who work for this unworkable edifice. Like the Dome, it will only work properly when it is privatised.
The BBC has promoted climate change into a religion, attacked Christians & Jews and promoted Islam, denigrated our national identity, promoted Hamas, the IRA and Hezbollah to the pantheon of greats and indulges in unpleasant and nasty depictions of those it despises most – the poll tax mugs who pay for it.
Compare the excellent coverage this week by News at Ten on ITV of Pakistan and Afghanistan to the simpering, miserable and vile bigotry pumped out byFrei and Guerin (the woman who proves that the dead still walk the earth.)
Friends in the Middle East and Africa tell me that no one takes the BBC seriously any more. They see it as inaccurate and flawed, with a one dimensional, narrow elitist view of world events.
The lefty’s in Beebland must be in total confusion right now. After years of talking up the thugocracy in Iran, they are struggling to come to terms with recent events.
Expose them. Dismantle the monster.
"…BBC exes gravy train revealed: Bosses charged £100 bottles of bubbly, private planes and £500 handbags – all to the licence fee payer…"
Damm. No Polish rent boys yet. I bet they are in there somewhere.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1195396/A-Brucie-bonus-BBC-expenses-reveal-chief-gave-Forsyth-100-bottle-champagne-80th.html
If they shut down the light-entertainment division – which has zero to do with "public service broadcasting", unless one defines that as whatever gets ratings – then they won't have any celebrities to pamper.
Except 92K pa marginal newsreaders, biographers of sitting Prime Ministers, Lobby whores, and such like.
"I wonder if the BBC will tell us how much it spends on rent boys and Cocaine?"
I really doubt they can get these on expenses 😉
No wonder they can't hold MPs to account.
They complain about an MP claiming one hundred pounds a MONTH on food then the BBC boss claims a hundred pounds a DAY on dinners and drinks.
Utterly pathetic.
(Martin, be patient, they are on their way)
There is such a thing as a free lunch – I had loads of them back in my ad days – as a client. Dining three times a week in Soho. The agency skimmed 17.5% commission on the ad-spend and fed a tiny percent back into entertaining the client. No public money involved then – it's a commercial judgement that its worth it. Not so with the Beeb. Its telly-tax funded. Like MPs expenses, its OUR money and we have no choice but to pay.
I want top see every lunch receipt for BBC celeb-entertaining in particular. The bigger the fish, the more the tab eh? Johnathon Ross can afford to pick up the tab – why should we?
AndrewSouthLondon,
You raise a good point. That's all legit expense, part of doing business, part of how deals are made, relationships developed.
But the BBC shouldn't have that kind of excuse. Who's going to believe them if they claim that these celebs simply won't come on TV if they don't get the red carpet treatment?
Surely most of the schmoozing should be done by people trying to sell to the BBC. They might want to tempt the odd "celeb" with an expensive meal, but there can't be that many of those surely.
The BBC sells to nobody. Who are the clients it is trying to please? Not me that's for bloody sure!
Richard 2:09
I am aware I was oversimplifying matters in Turkey, but this blog is maybe not the place for a long discussion. My point was that the BBC correspondent was arguing from a position of ignorance.
Of course, many people hold your viewpoint. I happen to totally disagree, but time will tell…. !
Anon 2:49
Brilliant post !!!
I can also confirm that the educated West Africans I spoke to on a recent trip were highly critical of the BBC World service and BBC 24 news , but also very puzzled by the decline in the BBC.
But the point is that they have noticed !
I warned you guys about this some months ago. People are going to be really mad when all the facts come out. Here are a couple of snippets:
*Once when I informed a head of department I had secured the services of a famous (older) celeb presenter, his first response was, "Find out what his favourite wine is and order a couple of dozen bottles…" (We'd already signed him up – but it was felt he needed to be feted.) The wine was around 150 a bottle. The presenter didn't drink the wine – he was a good guy, hated BBC management and preferred to hang out with the production crew who drank tea.
*In some countries if a taxi driver knows you are from the BBC he smiles and offers you blank cab receipts – for a large tip (also deductible). Taxi drivers know BBC reporters are greedy people who fill in the blank receipts with details of phantom journeys…
Want more?
"Biased BBC" (it isn't by the way) blog is still the home of the batshit insane. The rightwing conspira-loons who always see reds under the bed.
This site is so ironic it hurts. Hilariously ironic mind, because contributors take themselves so seriously whilst posting the most loony invective anyone is likely to see written on the web.
Beeb-troll's woken up!. Grumpy after its afternoon nap.
anon 2:49 PM. excellent post
anon 5:03 PM, just got home from school right?
This is a bit off topic, but could anyone tell me whether Ken Livingstone will get paid for his constant appearances on the BBC; especially Newsnight?
Apound to a penny that Ken gets paid for every appearance. He'll be getting several thousand a year from the licence payers.
I wonder if the Anonymous hater cares to debate instead of spouting invectives. Nah.
Hmmmm…..
It think there may be a different angle to this saga that perhaps others better placed could pounce 'panther like' upon and do something with.
Firstly from Sky News (as I couldn't see it reported openly on BBC on the main article on expenses apart from some pdf links)
"Meanwhile, the list of the 50 highest-paid BBC managers shows that Mark Thompson receives a salary of £647,000, while others in the Executive Board earn between £459,000 and £328,000."
Now, as a person funded by the taxpayer, Mr Thompson and all his comrades are effectively civil servants (except their wages are set by the BBC Trust (I assume?).
All other tax-payer departments have their wage levels set via negotiations with HM Treasury. This includes from the humble clerks up to Ministers who run the country, and none of them can even come close to justifying a salary of £600k, yet they are responsible for a corporation (UK plc) many, many times bigger than the marshlands of the BBC.
So, should a simple solution not be for the BBC (as a taxpayer-funded vehicle) simply conform to the wage levels appropriate to their responsibility that all other taxpayer-funded departments must negotiate with the Treasury to ensure good value for the public purse.
The BBC Trust could remain the point of negotiation with the Treasury maintaining the BBC's independence but I can see no reason why people responsible for making decisions for the country be paid 'substantially' less than a media jockey, especially when there is a deep reluctance to 'open the books'…….where there's smoke, there's fire……and where there's corruption, there's cuban champagne (thanks anon 2:49 for the champers…..though i don't think I want to know what cuban champagne is made from??? :O )
just saying is all….
Nightwatch
Amazingly it seems this is so bad that even the Guardian have felt prompted to cover this
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jun/25/bbc-executives-hotel-bills
"Corporation's senior managers spend tens of thousands of pounds sampling the best of the global hospitality industry"
What accountability is there in all this? Its all very well for Mark Thompson to publish this, but where are the protests "Its all within the rules!" There don't even seem to be any rules, let alone application of Inland Revenue rules of personal benefit. How big a bunch of flowers does Bruce Forsyth need? What f*ckn vintage was that bottle of champagne? The rest of us that pay for this head to see whats on special offer. Did some BBC grandee tell their PA which marque and vintage to buy? Or did they piss off up to the wine merchant at £x,000 an hour to chose it personally? There isn't even a "claim on expenses" culture here, its far far worse, its spend what you like on what you like, don't worry, Ms Emily Scroggins on a state pension will pay for this. Thompson should resign – no – should have the benefit of piano-wire and lamp-post, arrogant patrician bastard.
Martin,
Brazilian rent boys, surely? There's someone well placed in government to help them out.
Anon 5:03
Your intellectual argument is overwhelming.
Grant, I hope for the sake of Turkey you are wrong. It's a test case for seeing if AKP and parties of a similar ilk can respect the secular ideals of Ataturk. It's a great country and one which I've always felt welcome in, whether that's Istanbul, Van or Diyarbakir. I'll be watching closely.
Richard 10:56,
I hope I am wrong too, but I know too much about the personal background of AKP leaders and their methods, which I have witnessed at first hand, to have much confidence, sadly.
"Anonymous said…
"Biased BBC" (it isn't by the way) blog is still the home of the batshit insane. The rightwing conspira-loons who always see reds under the bed.
This site is so ironic it hurts. Hilariously ironic mind, because contributors take themselves so seriously whilst posting the most loony invective anyone is likely to see written on the web.
5:03 PM, June 25, 2009"
This post is seriously offensive and should be deleted.
The fact the poster wishes to remain 'anonymous' makes the need doubly so.
Can we please ban the 'anonymous' option from biased bbc it is seriously detrimental to the blog.