I was on BBC London yesterday morning at an ungodly hour discussing the Royal Charter for the BBC brought forward yesterday. In essence the only real surprise from the White Paper in May was that the Government is asking the BBC to reveal which of its “talent” earns more than the Prime Minister i.e. >£150,000. Turns that even this is a cop-out..
More than half of BBC stars paid more than £150,000 could escape having their salaries made public, after a loophole emerged in new plans to force the corporation to be more transparent.
Karen Bradley, the new culture secretary, yesterday unveiled proposals to compel the BBC to publish the salaries of the 109 presenters and performers who are paid more than £150,000 a year in its next annual report.
But it emerged last night that the transparency edict would not extend to stars working for the corporation’s new production division, BBC Studios, which is expected to get approval to launch later this year.
To be honest, I see all this salary revelation stuff as a sideshow. It’s how the BBC obtains the money it then uses that is my concern. The license tax is the problem, the annual extortion of £3.5bn, which is then used to pay these left wing talking heads.I want to see that axed.
WE ARE UNDER REPRESENTED IN THE MSM ,WHY DO WE HAVE TO PUT UP WITH IT? WHAT ARE THE RIGHT WING JOURNALISTS DOING FOR A LIVING? THERE MUST BE SOME THAT WANT TO WORK ON TELEVISION?
Mackers,
I’m sure that there are right of centre journalists a plenty and a few may even work for the BBC but are cowed into submission by the overwhelmingly liberal left bias of the organisation. The BBC , thanks to being publicly funded, dominates the media in the UK. I suspect that if you don’t tow the liberal left line you wreck your career not just at the corporation but throughout the UK media as a whole. So most journos who privately don’t agree with the liberal line keep their own council. What we really need is for a privately funded right of centre mass media company to operate in the UK , a Fox News or a TV Breitbart. I think that there would be a good level of demand for that type of content in the UK. Of course as soon as it got any traction it would be attacked by the BBC and others . If it told the truth about migration and Islam the authorities , Labour or Tory would probably shut it down. Defeating the liberal left elite will be difficult as they hold the levers of power, the BBC being a key one, and they will use them ruthlessly to retain their grip on power. The Tories have shown yet again that , far from confronting the elite ,they are keen to play along. Any right of centre party would have used the charter review to ,at the very least ,clip the wings of the corporation, but the Tories have allowed the monster to grow.
Gramsci, if he were still alive, would be dead chuffed.
“During the meeting, hosted by Sue Lawley, executives admitted they would happily broadcast the image of a Bible being thrown away – but would not do the same for the Koran”.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/yes-we-are-biased-on-religion-and-politics-admit-bbc-executives-7088133.html
All you hear in the media, especially the BBC,is the BBC is funded with “public money”(translation: money stolen by force and coercion from the public).
The cry is they need to have an independent board to manage the corporation. If that is case, there should be members of the public on the board as worker directors.
The money paid to stars IS a sideshow as so correctly stated.
It is the Operational Expenditure side of the balance sheet (ex stars costs) which is of interest. The layer upon layer of management. The pay-offs. Premises. Premises refurbishment costs. The absurd levels of duplication as seen whenever there is a major event somewhere in the world, where multiple reporters and teams are sent to cover the same event for Radio AND TV.
Lets not forget. The BBC takes £4.5bn pa plus a bit in revenue. They say they cannot afford £25m to renew the GBBO, even though that’s the right decision, but why nit-pick over £25m when they spend £100s of millions on other non-productive stuff.
Someone should just take an axe to the whole thing.
You can have some fun while at the same time waking a few people up with this one. Do a straw poll in the office, at dinner, down the pub, and ask people what they think the BBBC costs. I’ve been doing this and median estimate is normally about £200m. Some people simply refuse to believe that it could be £4.5bn.
I have never heard any comment, anywhere, about BBC end of year financials in the context of its end of year results. It could be just me and I’m looking in the wrong place, but does anyone know whether it runs a profit/ surplus or is it all in deficit, ie run at a loss?
“stars working for the corporation’s new production division, BBC Studios,”
Now I know why those untouchable BBC employees always have huge grins on their faces!
And the yanks just love the BBC: we yanks just love “McDonald Hastings”! How is he these days?
One of the problems with the BBC staff is that they simply have no notion of the value of money and the sheer effort a small businessman has to make to earn say 50,000 from his business let alone the salaries these entitled snowflakes seem to command.
This also means that they are bought up to despise and denigrate the small businessman as to them ( the snowflakes) it all comes so easily courtesy of the taxpayer.
The BBC cannot be reformed, cannot be trusted and cannot be persuaded to act reasonably anymore.
Finish it.
The BBC Studios loophole won’t be effective for a while, The intial transfer of programmes is to a new division, Which ever way you look at it, that division is still part of the same company, and any attempt to get around the salary reporting will be a clear breach of the charter. Howver, the plan is to shift the whole division out to a sepearate subsidiary at some point, at which time they would try to jump through the loophole, even though they are still being paid by the licence fee payers.
Or all these stars will just set up their own production companies and be paid through them, Im no tax expert but that seems like something they could do.
Not a side show. Long overdue. I’d like to see all their salaries made public – just like the Civil Service.
And their expenses. I’d be sure they would make the MP’s expenses look minor.
It’s possible that the way to bring the BBC back under control is via their finances. When the public realises just how the BBC wastes their money then there will be much more pressure to perform.