Editorial Comment

SIR – The Institute for Fiscal Studies reports that Britain’s wealth gap has narrowed since the recession. Not so, it appears, at the BBC, where almost 100 “stars” are paid some £30 million of public money to entertain us with chat shows and provide the corporation’s own interpretation of news and current affairs.

Lord Hall, the BBC’S directorgeneral, says that such pay is necessary in order to attract and keep “top talent” in a market where the corporation has to compete with commercial providers. Clearly, this is a false comparison. Commercial television is funded by advertising, which relies on ratings. The BBC, on the other hand, receives around £3.5 billion regardless of how many viewers watch or listen to its outputs.

The BBC may, of course, be attempting to divert our attention from its profligate use of taxpayers’ money by focusing on the gender pay gap. In doing so, is Lord Hall suggesting that, overall, even more should be paid to its stars to eliminate the difference between what is paid to men and women? John Barker

Prestbury, Cheshire

SIR – I would rather know the political affiliations of BBC staff than their salaries. Teresa Brown

Holt, Norfolk

SIR – Can anyone explain just where the talent lies in presenting television news, whether for the BBC or commercial TV?

Give me the unassuming, and often anonymous, Radio Three and Four newsreaders any day. Without pictures or high-cost production values to back them up, they manage to cram more information into their allotted few minutes than TV news can give us in half an hour. What’s more, it doesn’t matter if they are sitting at the microphone in evening dress, designer outfits or their M&S pyjamas. William T Nuttall

Rossendale, Lancashire SIR – The BBC seeks to elevate the importance of its presenters by using the word “talent”, presumably to imply scarcity.

Other industries rarely use the word. People are employed, following training or experience, to do a job at which they are accomplished – however junior or senior. Cameron Morice

Reading, Berkshire

SIR – Many years ago, as a naive young doctor, I wrote to the secretary of our hospital in Liverpool complaining that, whereas our junior colleagues working on-call in our sister hospital were provided with a three-course evening meal, we received only two courses for the same charge.

The reply was prompt, thanking me for pointing this out and advising that the anomaly had been resolved. Our colleagues’ meals were being reduced to two courses. This did nothing for my popularity in either camp. Denis Wilkins

Liskeard, Cornwall