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Media
BBC announce exec cuts and pay freezes
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 30 October 2009
Despite management frequently defending the salaries of top earners – on and off screen – at the BBC, the Corporation’s regulatory Trust has announced that the broadcaster plans to cut more than 100 senior managers and will freeze the pay of its most senior execs in a bid to cut the organisation’s £79 million exec wages budget.
Confirming the move, the BBC Trust’s chair Michael Lyons told reporters: “The Trust challenged the BBC Executive to review senior pay at the BBC. Mark Thompson and his team have responded with a comprehensive set of proposals that strike the right balance between ensuring the BBC can attract the best people to do the job, while ensuring maximum value for the licence fee payer”.
Thompson himself added: “A few months ago we announced our determination to reduce the amount we pay top on-air talent. The recommendations we have announced today seek to achieve similar reductions within our senior management community. Senior managers will see their total remuneration fall over the period, with the biggest reductions felt by those in the most senior positions”.
As previously reported, the BBC has been much criticised in the last year for the fees it pays top talent and senior management, with political types and key players in the commercial media arguing that the Beeb – because of its licence fee funding – is still operating as if the economy was booming, while all commercial broadcasters are having to slash budgets left right and centre.
BBC management hopes that cutting talent fees when contracts come up for renewal, and slim lining the more senior executive levels of the Corporation, will placate those critics. It’s unlikely to work. Tory culture man Jeremy Hunt responded to yesterday’s cuts announcement negatively, arguing top execs should take pay cuts. He told reporters: “The BBC has missed an opportunity to prove it is in tune with the public mood over high salaries. Public anger was focused not just on the management itself but on the salaries paid to senior executives. The BBC needs to be careful that it doesn’t lose the public’s trust by being out of step on such an important issue”.
