Real nurses are the Casualty of BBC pay
SPARE a thought for the security guards at Broadcasting House, who will have spent much of this week breaking up fights between some of our biggest stars.
Nothing like a bit of drama to spice things up in the workplace, is there?
Can you imagine the scenes at your own office once Janette in finance finds out that Karen two desks down gets a more generous holiday allowance?
Beyond Chris Evans continuing his mass hypnosis of BBC execs to claw in £2.2million a year for talking in between records, there were very few surprises in the salary revelations.
I’ll admit I raised an eyebrow to learn that Derek Thompson is the BBC’s highest-paid actor – especially as I had no idea who he was. A quick google revealed him to be Casualty’s Charlie Fairhead – proving that the only way to make money in an NHS uniform is to pretend in front of a camera. His £350,000-plus salary to play an Emergency Nurse Practitioner could pay for 10 of the real thing – a fairly depressing statistic.
But it’s only depressing because nurses should be paid so much better than they are. I’ve got no problem with TV stars earning good money for entertaining millions. Clearly I’m in a minority as the general
The only direction the wage bill will go now is north
sentiment on social media and radio drone-in shows seems to be, “Someone earns more than me – call the waaaambulance!”
I heard clamourings ( from people unlikely to be troubling the Nobel Prize for Economics committee any time soon) for the BBC to cap wages at £50k.
But the truth is, if you want to attract the best in the business, you obviously have to shell out market rates. And this week’s revelations will actually cost licence fee payers a lot of money.
The nanosecond that Alex Jones gets wind of co-presenter Matt Baker’s higher salary, for example, she’ll rightly be demanding a raise.
The only direction the wage bill will be travelling is north. The news will also cost Auntie a lot of stars. Who wants to work at a company where everyone knows what you’re getting?
It’s human nature to be secretive about money – ever since we’re young we’re taught to hide the truth about our pocket money from greedy siblings. Not to mention that any commercial competitor who wants to poach a presenter now knows precisely how big the carrot must be.
I let out two particularly weary sighs reading through the list. Firstly at the fact we live in a world where talent-void Claudia Winkleman is the highest-paid woman at the BBC. And secondly at the utterly predictable news that less than a third of the list is female; and broadcasting heavyweights such as Clare Balding and Gabby Logan are earning much less than male counterparts doing a similar job.
It’s shameful, inexcusable and embarrassing.
I dare say they’ll save a few quid on Doctor Who by paying Jodie Whittaker less than Peter Capaldi’s £200k+. No need for the first female Time Lord to travel back in time to look for outdated attitudes and unfair pay gaps – they’re right here.