BBC salaries are huge but women are still losing out
IN ADVANCE of yesterday’s official disclosures about top BBC salaries the mood inside the corporation was reported to be one of panic. Concerns over public fury at the revelations were said to be matched by fears of talent poaching by commercial broadcasters.
But this was all deceptive spin. In reality the BBC relished every minute of the controversy. The organisation was doing what it loves best: leading the news bulletins with a story about itself. There is no public body in Britain that is more self-reverential. Navel-gazing and attention-seeking are the BBC’s default modes.
But in this case the anticipated explosion never materialised. The BBC bosses were denied their frisson of excitement as the reaction of the public seemed to veer from indifference to mild grumbling.
There were two reasons for this muted response. The first is that the corporation, for all its flaws, is a cherished British institution. Like the NHS it is venerated as a symbol of national pride, capable of producing everything from world beating drama to lively local news. Much of the public therefore feels a certain instinctive loyalty towards the BBC and its well-rewarded performers.
THE second factor is that we live in an age of celebrity where people are used to the idea that entertainers enjoy fabulous earnings. In the context of such riches the payments of the BBC to some of its top stars look less extravagant.
Football pundit Alan Shearer, for instance, received up to £499,000-a-year yet certain top Premiership players could earn that in a couple of weeks.
In our media-dominated culture, figures such as Graham Norton and Chris Evans, with their unique ability to engage with their audiences, can command a high price.
Evans, on £2.2 million, has delivered record-breaking ratings for his Radio 2 breakfast show while Norton’s £900,000 salary reflects the reality that he is the indisputable modern king of the British chat show.
Yet complacency about the salaries of BBC talent would be equally misplaced. Even if they were greeted by a shrug from the public the revelations have exposed a mix of inconsistency and excess at the heart of the corporation. Justifiably there has been a focus on the glaring gender imbalance, with men accounting for all of the top seven earners and two-thirds of all those on salaries above £150,000.
From an organisation that poses as the champion of sex equality this bias represents the height of hypocrisy. Indeed some of the cases of differential payments are absurd. While John Humphrys at the Today programme on Radio 4 takes home up to £650,000 (he also presents Mastermind), his colleague Sarah Montague is not even on the list. Gary Lineker gets an incredible £1.8million for fronting Match Of The Day, among other shows, yet the more fluent, insightful and hard-working Clare Balding is on less than £200,000.
Yet the problems with the BBC’s salary structure go beyond gender unfairness. Even accounting for the influence of celebrity there is far too much prodigality, with huge sums dished out to people who don’t merit them. Why on earth is the self-important presenter Alan Yentob on up to £249,000 when he is either despised or unknown by the public? What is the rationale behind a salary of up to £349,000 for Lauren Laverne of Radio 6 Music, which has 2.27 million weekly listeners, almost the same as the Radio 3 classical station?
Defenders of the current system invoke the free market, claiming that if the BBC’s talented stars are paid insufficiently they will depart for the commercial sector. That might be true in a few cases, such as Graham Norton’s, but in general it is unconvincing.
There is only a limited free market in British broadcasting, partly because of the BBC’s dominance. In many sectors, such as news and current affairs, competition is severely restricted so presenters cannot pretend that there is a ferocious demand for their services.
What commercial station is going to offer even more to £349,000-a-year Eddie Mair, the presenter of Radio 4’s PM? In any case, the whole question of broadcasting talent is exaggerated. There are lots of telegenic, competent presenters in BBC local newsrooms who would be just as good as Fiona Bruce, who incredibly is on up to £400,000. Perhaps some new arrivals to the news and current affairs division might mean less willingness to spout the BBC’s liberal orthodoxy, especially on Brexit and immigration. Even Andrew Marr (on up to £450,000) admits the BBC has “an innate liberal bias.”
BUT it is unlikely that the BBC will change. Like so many public sector bodies which do not have to earn a living in the commercial world, the corporation is gripped by inefficiency, sclerosis and bureaucracy. The current row over presenters pales beside the reality that there are 306 BBC managers on salaries above £150,000.
Yet reform is avoided because the BBC has a vast guaranteed income from the licence fee, worth £3.74 billion in 2015/16. Everyone with a television is forced to subsidise the corporation on pain of criminal charges or even imprisonment. In 2015 10 per cent of all prosecutions heard in magistrates’ courts were for non-payment of the TV licence.
This power gives the BBC tremendous influence in our civic life. But as this week shows it is not one always exercised responsibly.
‘A mix of inconsistency and excess’