BBC officer class enrages people, chief admits
Executive salaries at the BBC have created an “officer class” which is causing “resentment and anger” among lower-paid workers, Lord Hall, the director-general of the corporation, has admitted.
Liz MacKean, a former BBC Newsnight journalist, said: “The whole issue about severance payments gets to the heart of something that has gone badly wrong with the BBC over the last decade and more, which is the creation of an officer class that seems to fly in the face of the principles of public service broadcasting.”
Alan Yentob, who earns £183,000 as the BBC’s creative director, joined Lord Hall on stage and rejected a call for more transparency over salaries. He said: “The BBC is not a local authority, OK? We need to invest, we need to get people to come in. Who wants to come to an organisation where their privacy is [affected]?”
Talking of privacy maybe Yentob should listen to this:
Mariella Frostrup asks:
And talking of officer elites Evan Davis asks:
Both programmes very BBC…both jam packed with worthy, highly educated middle class ‘elites’….you can hear Davis has the decency to be embarrassed about the makeup of his panel.
But…Evan Davis admits that he wouldn’t have wanted to go to a school like Eton…because he would have a been a small fish in a big pond, whereas at a state school, where he was headboy, he was a big fish in a small pond….a small pond intellectually and academically he means.
Charmed I’m sure to know how the BBC’s finest look down upon their fellow state school inmates…..intellectually wanting but that’s good as it makes Evan look better.
Listening to both programmes, and well, any such programme from the BBC, and you keep hearing ‘The Poor’ being mentioned, concern for the ‘lower orders’, but where are their voices?
How is it that concern for the ’Poor’ and ‘Disadvantaged’ is the sole preserve it seems of middle class intellectuals? Do ‘The Poor’ not have any thoughtful comments about ‘elites’ or ‘privacy’?
We’re told that ‘The Poor’ are shut out more than ever from the higher reaches of society and that privacy is the domain of the rich….so how come they have no voice on these BBC programmes, a seat at the table rather than picking up the crumbs thrown to them by their ‘betters’?
Pity for the poor is it?
Any chance of a profile on who the BBC end up taking to court to saddle with a criminal record?…and all to enforce the payment of a telly tax as irrelevant and as unjustified as the dog-license!
If it`s not “the poor”…single mums, the marginalised and the vulnerable(as ceaselessly trumpeted by the BBC)…then I`ll wonder who it is.
Betcha that the culturally-enriched areas of the country don`t end up in court as much as the chav white trash that carried Evaqn Davis to his exalted rank as queasy popinjay with interesting piercings.
Racial profiling by the BBC-and their Capita glove puppet of convenience?
“Alan Yentob, who earns £183,000 as the BBC’s creative director”
Who says the BBC does not do comedy?
Sour grapes. McKean was in a bitter fight with those in the officer class about them shelving her and Meirion Jones’ Savile story. When one of these top mandarins gets fired for reasons they don’t like, the Beeboids usually wax fondly about the person being great, unfairly targeted, etc., and no bitching about some elite officer class.
Haven`t we a fine lyricist at this site who could give us a rewrite of the “Yentob Song” as made famous by the Goons-as funny as Brigstocke, Steel, Hardy and Thomas IMHO?
Don’t know about the lower orders, but the BBC’s paying customer base may be getting a tad tetchy by now too.
Especially as said officer class seems a cross between Arthur, Bertie Wooster & General Melchett, and as much use. At anything…
http://tradingaswdr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/knotted.html
As market rate talents go, it’s hard to imagine what his might be.
Yentob gets two salaries, plus a pension from the BBC.
His role as creative director is widely regarded as a “non-job”, that was due for abolition under previous DG George Entwistle. The new DG Tony Hall has ‘been persuaded’ to keep him on board.
He also gets a £150,000 plus salary as editor of Imagine, another nonjob. He merely introduces programmes made by someone else – usually they are not even made by the BBC, e.g. the recent Woody Allen documentary. Or the one on the history of television in the US. Both excellent programs, which Yentob clearly trying to create an impression that he had a hand in creating, in reality they were nothing to do with the BBC whatsoever. He is no more than a glorified continuity announcer, with a very generous expenses allowance. He insists on flying first class and staying in top hotels wherever he goes.
He also gets a BBC pension. Reported to have a total value of nearly £3 million. £200k annual income?
He has £4 million in house in Notting Hill, and £1.5 million Tudor mansion in Somerset. Not bad for a public servant.
All thanks to the unique way the BBC is funded.
Plus he helps procure programmes from outside film companies, such as his own.
Yes I know he is one of the loathsome liberal elite who have done so much damage to the country and lined their own pockets at the same time. But I expect that the BBC succession planning board have earmarked some nice, Burka wearing, women for his post, whose idea of informing us is, ‘ A thousand and one uses for a prayer mat’, educating us is, ‘ Morning, noon and night Koranic studies’ and entertaining us, ‘Sharia Law in Action’.
PS No Great British Bake Off during Rhamadan
“PS No Great British Bake Off during Rhamadan”
Islamic benediction!
‘Botney’ does serve a useful purpose, though – no, I’m not talking about the comedy job descriptions he’s awarded himself at the BBC, jobs we all know are meaningless in both title and content, but rather the fact of his still being employed by the Corporation is a constant, very clear reminder of the rot at the centre of the machine.
It’s perfectly obviously that out in the real world, away from the artifice of a guaranteed £3.5bn annual heist from the British public under threat of imprisonment for non-payment, the BBC would have put the superannuated Yentob out to grass long ago – if ever there was a definition of ‘expensive waste of space’ this man and his smug, self-congratulatory ego-stroking would have been booted out of the door long ago. Instead, he continues to be found something to do – at great expense – by the Corporation, who seem either too stupid or too spineless to do the decent thing and show him his P45.