Multi-millionaire Matt LeBlanc will see his bank balance swell by £2 million – $2.6 million – thanks to the staggeringly generous publicly-funded pay deal he has just secured as host of British TV programme Top Gear.
LeBlanc has signed up to host another two series of the BBC motoring show after his former colleague Chris Evans resigned.
While nobody will confirm the exact figure he will be paid, the £2 million figure is generally accepted as accurate.
Each Top Gear series has six episodes, meaning that LeBlanc will pick up about £166,000 per programme – that’s $215,000.
What some in America and other overseas territories may not realise is that LeBlanc’s salary ultimately comes directly from the pockets of hard-pressed British taxpayers thanks to the old-fashioned way the BBC is funded: each household must under law pay £145.50 (about $190) per year for the right to own a television set.
Those who do not buy a licence risk a fine. About 180,000 people in the UK are prosecuted each year for not buying a licence and dozens go to prison for not paying the fine having not bought a licence.
The £3.5 billion which is collected annually via the licence fee goes straight to the BBC and its bosses spend it as they see fit once their various commitments to news are upheld.
Some of this money is accounted for in the BBC’s annual report but a significant amount of it – including presenters’ fees – is kept secret to appease stars such as LeBlanc.
In LeBlanc’s case, the BBC has confirmed that it will never disclose his precise salary because some of his fee is allegedly being paid by the BBC’s corporate arm, BBC World.
Having made a fortune through Friends, LeBlanc is now being paid big money to indulge his hobby of driving fast cars – and the public is picking up the tab.
The BBC, like the NHS, is deemed by some politicians and public figures to be an essential part of British public life. They argue tirelessly that it must never be privatised. Thanks to his new deal, LeBlanc is one of a tiny handful of people to benefit in a truly corporate sense from this antiquated model.
He will make about as much loot per series of Top Gear as the average British worker (£26,500 a year) makes in one working lifetime.