How can BBC bosses justify bumper deals?
It is shocking that some of the highest paid executives at the BBC have been awarded rises of up to 30 per cent, as you reported last week. They don’t deserve it if they are slashing programme budgets.
And how dare they consider scrapping free licences for the over-75s, most of whom have never even earned £30,000 a year (the amount claimed in expenses by Ken MacQuarrie, the director of nations and regions, on top of his massive salary). These pensioners only got to watch black-and-white sets as teenagers and have been taxpayers all their working lives, funding the BBC.
Executives cannot compare their salaries to those at commercial channels. Perhaps it is time they went into the private sector.
S. Martin, East Preston, West Sussex
The ‘Big Bucks Corporation’, as you renamed the BBC last week, is apt. Executives and presenters receive undeserved six-figure salaries, courtesy of the modest incomes of licence-fee payers.
The public must no longer be forced to fund this radical Leftwing organisation’s profligate waste of public money. Let’s call time on the licence fee.
Chaka Artwell, Oxford
There have been lots of redundancies at the BBC over the past decade, and many of those in senior positions have gone. If these people on big bucks are taking on the work that other, less dynamic executives did, then I say good for them – and good on the BBC. It’s surely better to have a few, brilliant workers on mega salaries than a whole host of senior staffers killing time before their retirement.
J. Benn, London
I found it somewhat interesting that Chris Evans used the BBC’s One Show last week to promote his departure from the Corporation. It was timely and clever to actively encourage his listeners to switch to his new style of broadcasting on Virgin, which will not have adverts but will promote Sky thanks to branded content.
The days of the licence fee are numbered and the BBC should be concerned. Chris is a clever broadcaster and will undoubtedly be part of its demise.
Faith McKenzie, Brechin
The BBC is funded by taxpayers, so why then are staff not accountable to the public? The recent pay rises show everything that’s wrong with a system that allows any group to self-govern. Ordinary working people have little say when they are told there’s no money for a wage rise.
Richard Burnett, Hull
I think the Prime Minister’s salary should be increased to £200,000 a year and no one from the public sector, including BBC staff, should be paid more than that.
Andy Birch, Wythall, Birmingham