BBC superwoman, her cameraman husband and how his firm made a fortune ... from BBC
THE most powerful woman in British television has been forced to quit her husband’s company over an ‘ astonishing’ conflict of interests.
Charlotte Moore, the ‘superwoman’ in charge of the BBC’s TV content, has spent the past nine years as company secretary of Perry Images, a TV business owned by her husband Johann Perry – a cameraman who has regularly been hired by the BBC.
During that time, Miss Moore has scaled the ranks of the Corporation and is now in charge of a budget of more than £1billion.
Her husband’s firm has profited handsomely from the broadcaster, making dozens of shows for the BBC – including some that Miss Moore herself commissioned.
But, in a move that will anger licence fee payers, she did not declare her link to Perry Images in the BBC’s public register of interests.
The broadcaster said yesterday that
‘Authority without
accountability’
Miss Moore was not obliged to declare her interest in the company because she is neither a director nor a shareholder.
It claimed she told bosses about her husband’s job when she joined the BBC, but it did not make them public for ‘data protection’ reasons.
Yesterday Miss Moore resigned from the position when the Daily Mail asked about the conflict.
Meanwhile, Perry Images’ shareholder funds have soared, rising 50 per cent in the last year alone, as the cameraman was hired for some of the BBC’s biggest shows.
Mr Perry worked with Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall on the BBC1 nature show Big Blue Live, and Hugh’s War on Waste. The celebrity chef was lured from Channel 4 by Miss Moore.
Mr Perry’s website also boasts of his work with Stephen Fry, Dara O’Briain and Ed Byrne.
He was also recruited to film two episodes of Imagine, the arts series fronted by Alan Yentob, who was one of the BBC’s most powerful figures at the time, as its £330,000-ayear creative director.
Yesterday, MPs called for a BBC Trust investigation into the arrangement. Tory Andrew Bridgen said: ‘ Nowhere else would you be able to spend so much money withnests out a The transparentBBC has tendering authority process.without accountability.
‘The BBC Trust should be looking into this but that never happens in BBC world. There seems to be endemic nepotism.’
There is no suggestion that Miss Moore deliberately channelled money towards her husband’s firm, or that she commissioned it directly. said But Johann television Perry’s industry links figuresto Miss Moore will have ‘undoubtedly’ boosted his career. And they questioned why Miss Moore and the BBC did not make the apparent conflict clearer. The broadcaster’s public register of interests – designed to stop BBC executives from using their positions of power to feather their own – says that she has personal interests to declare, with a discreet letter ‘Y’ against the question. However, it does not make any mention of Perry Images, even though the form asks for details of any ‘external business interests or relationships with customers/suppliers/ direct competitors of the BBC’.
A BBC spokesman said: ‘Charlotte Moore completed the required BBC’s declaration of interest form in which she clearly stated the nature of her husband’s job as a freelance cameraman. The BBC does not publish these details online for data protection reasons but her declaration has been known to the BBC since she joined in 2006.
‘Her husband’s work as a freelance cameraman doesn’t represent a conflict of interest as Charlotte Moore is not involved in hiring crew as those decisions are made by the production team and director.’
However, Perry Images has benefited hugely from the BBC’s patronage. According to official accounts, its assets more than tripled last year from £5,000 to £17,000. Meanwhile, shareholder funds have climbed 160 per cent since 2009, when Miss Moore first became a fully-fledged BBC commissioner,
Since Miss Moore joined the BBC’s documentaries department in 2006, her rise has been meteoric. In 2013, she spent a few months as acting controller of daytime before being named the boss of BBC1 in June that year.
The BBC has not disclosed Miss Moore’s new salary, but she earned £268,800-a-year as BBC1 boss.
Mr Perry, 45, did not respond to requests for comment.