Category Archives: bbb costs.

Today The Guardian has published a breakdown of what the BBC is spending in 2011 on its channels – which is number-crunched from the latest annual report. Click on the image to enlarge it.

Some of the details are very interesting. They highlight the facts that:

The report shows that BBC overheads rose by about £15m in its last financial year because of spending on the controversial relocation of several thousand staff from London to Salford and the redevelopment of Broadcasting House. 

The media focus is on the costs of the big talent stars, and that data is in the report too: 

• The BBC’s overall talent costs dropped by £9m to £213m in the year to the end of March
• In 2010-11, 274 people earned over £100,000, compared with 270 last year
• 19 stars earned between £500,000 and £5m – down from 21 in 2009-10

With typical Guardian slant, a controversial rise becomes “compared with” and a tiny margin of error drop becomes “down from”. But they crunched the graphics so its unkind to complain too much…

A spreadsheet with with the full figures lives here. Feel encouraged to rip it apart in the Comments.

Wonder if you are impressed as I am by Sir Michael Lyons, the chairman of the BBC Trust, who has laid himself open to accusations of hypocrisy after his remuneration package rose by 30 per cent to £213,000 last year, despite his assurances that the Corporation was cutting costs! Perhaps when BBC talking heads drone on about the “greed” of the bankers they need to look more closely to home to see greed in action? What say you?

Wonder what you make of the news that the BBC’s annual taxi bill for ferrying guests to programmes has soared by an astonishing £2million? In the last financial year it spent 5.3million on transporting contributors, up 60 per cent on the previous £3.3million. With more broadcasting planned from the BBC’s new regional centre in Salford – even though many guests will have to be brought up from London – taxi bills are likely to soar ever higher! And worst of all, what about those ghastly C02 emissions destroying Gaia? Isn’t it time that BBC contributors got out of their plush license tax funded taxis and onto their bicycles – if only to save the planet? Also, why is it that BBC execs travel first class? I see this on a regular basis and fail to see why such indulgence is permitted with OUR money?