It has not been a good week for the BBC.
First, it lost the right to broadcast its prized possession, The Great British Bake Off. Then its chairman, Rona Fairhead, was effectively muscled out of her job. And finally, it’s been confirmed today that from next year the Corporation is going to be forced to reveal the salaries of employees who earn more than £150,000.
Be in no doubt, the idea of having to admit the truth about its financial affairs will have been fought tooth and nail by the BBC’s bosses, most likely led by ex-Labour MP turned £295,000 BBC executive James Purnell.
Historically, BBC bosses’ ruthlessness know no bounds. For example, I know of an MP who once took a close interest in a matter which generated a significant amount of negative publicity for the BBC. The MP, who was happily married, was understandably startled when a Sunday newspaper reporter rang him one day accusing him of having had an extra-marital affair with another man. The MP was able to prove to me in a very convincing way that the source of this entirely fictional story must have been a BBC executive. As attempted smears go, this was pretty dark stuff.
Media reporters and commentators are today claiming that there are 109 BBC employees, so far unnamed, who receive more than £150,000 a year. This 109 figure comes from the BBC’s latest annual report and it will no doubt please BBC bosses to some extent that it has taken hold, because I think the true figure must be higher.
Heat Street has published a list of 42 BBC employees we’ve been told fall into the £150,000-plus category but it is important to note that this group is made up almost exclusively of journalists, newscasters and others who work on programmes which the BBC produces itself.
However, some of the BBC’s most expensive programmes – the ones with proper stars – are made by independent production companies. The BBC hands these firms a chunk of licence fee money and they distribute it to the performers, allowing the BBC to claim it isn’t responsible for the payments.
Through this very basic form of accounting trickery, the BBC can say – honestly – that it has nothing to do with the transaction. Thus, the stars’ individual fees never appear on the BBC’s books.
Programmes in this bracket include Have I Got News For You, drama The Missing, thriller The Night Manager and reality show The Voice. Think about it: is Hugh Laurie or Sir Tom Jones seriously going to get out of bed for less than £150,000? Of course not, and yet despite effectively being BBC employees, neither man’s fee will crop up in the BBC’s accounts.
Theresa May and her culture secretary Karen Bradley have taken an admirably tough line on the issue of BBC pay – one that John Whittingdale, for reasons which have not yet been unpicked – did not.
But to drain the swamp properly, and tell the public how its licence fee cash is being spent, she should insist the BBC goes as far as possible up to and including the Hugh Lauries of this world.
Otherwise there is a real risk that the saga of the BBC stars’ salaries is a story which will be left half-told, leaving the public once again in the dark.
In whose interests could that possibly be?