According to your editorial, the BBC has "one card to play: the ability to organise the arrangements for the over-75s differently" (The BBC can`t bear the costs of TV licences for the over-75s. A solution has to be found, 24/11/18). What about the rest of its deck? Ending its profligate ways would be a good starting point. Imposing a salary cap on all its presenters, whilst insisting not only on an equal gender pay policy, but also that no employees are paid via their companies for tax purposes, could follow. Which presenter could claim that earning, say £200000 a year, seven times the national average, was insufficient to fund a very pleasant lifestyle? Similarly, What is the point of a public corporation complaining about the lack of government funding if its pay policies encourage tax avoidance, deny millions to the treasury, and require years of enquiry by HMRC?
Then there is the matter of management pay; a report by the National Audit Office in 2017 revealed that the number of BBC managers earning over £150000 was still increasing, despite the corporation`s pledge to reduce it by 20%. The BBC website is still, however, listing well over a hundred managers earning above that amount! Perhaps such profligacy could be forgiven if the BBC managers were actually producing the goods, but popular programmes like Bodyguard and Dynasties are increasingly rare, "younger audiences are using the BBC less and less", top sports events are still being lost, and the sorely needed "watch-on-demand" culture is stifled by a fixation with outdated multi-channel broadcasting.
Let`s not "squander nor diminish" the role of the BBC, but also not forget its mismanagement!
It appears that the BBC is "currently in discussions with its presenters and is actively engaged with HMRC" to sort out the problems of tax avoidance at the corporation (Hundreds of BBC presenters risk tax investigations, says watchdog, 15/11/18). Presumably this is part of the review the BBC launched when it was first discovered to be paying presenters "through outside companies, in order to reduce tax bills". The trouble is that this review actually began in 2012 (BBC told by MPs to make presenters pay fair share of tax, 05/10/12)!
The public owned BBC`s disregard for the country`s urgent need for everyone to pay their fair share of tax, allied with its profligacy with licence fee-payers` money, beggars belief. The obscenely high salaries paid to sports` highlights programme presenters and newsreaders, and the gender bias in pay, can be coupled with the less well-known over-generous payment to its managers. Another report by the National Audit Office, this time in 2017, revealed that the number of BBC managers earning over £150000 was still increasing, despite the corporation`s pledge to reduce it by 20%. The BBC website is still, however, listing well over a hundred managers earning above that amount!
Perhaps some of this could be forgiven if the BBC managers were actually producing the goods, but programmes like Bodyguard are rare, young viewers are not tuning in, top sports events are still being lost, and the sorely needed "watch-on-demand" culture is stifled by a fixation with outdated multi-channel broadcasting.
The public accounts committee clearly has plenty to do, and listening to explanations from the Director-General has to be high on its list of priorities!
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