Public scandal of the bloated, biased Beeb

NO wonder the BBC fought tooth and nail against publishing its stars’ pay. Two days later, the infighting among presenters, the gender pay row and the public backlash are going strong.

With household names attracting most attention, another set of BBC figures almost went unnoticed. It has 106 – 106! – managers earning above £150,000, with ludicrous titles such as Integration Lead, and Analytics Architect. What they do is anyone’s guess.

It also emerges that many stars are not on the list because they are paid by private production firms or BBC Worldwide. Worse, some who do appear use personal companies in a way which lets them avoid tax – a practice the BBC vowed to end.

More importantly, this list is a reminder of the real problem with the Corporation: It is far too big. If it didn’t exist, no one would dream of setting up something so monolithic, bloated and bureaucratic.

The BBC dominates our TV, radio and the internet, with its gargantuan website almost single-handedly having destroyed local newspapers.

It is bad enough that this behemoth imposes a politically correct, metropolitan liberal agenda on licence fee payers.

More worrying still, although it is weakened by its byzantine bureaucracy, this sclerotic and wasteful Corporation still has the size and monopoly power to distort the market and block competition from rivals.

The BBC enjoys the advantage of the English language and – with better leadership – might have been able to rival US streaming giants such as Netflix by selling Britain’s creative talent around the world.

Last year, as he renegotiated the BBC charter, David Cameron had an opportunity to drag the Corporation into the 21st century. He could have cut the licence fee, while preserving the main radio stations and BBC1 and BBC2. The rest could then have been privatised, unleashing talent on the free market to create great British programmes.

The BBC would have been free to take risks and pay its stars whatever it wanted. Instead, it remains wedded to a funding model which is horribly antiquated and, with modern technology, frankly unsustainable.

A once-in-a-generation chance was squandered, and the BBC remains stuck in the past.