Graham Norton is on nearly £3million annually
9 May 2014 – BBC presenter Graham Norton earned £2.3m in fees and salary last year
BBC star Graham Norton earned £2.3m in fees and salary last year, for services including fronting BBC1’s The Graham Norton Show and BBC Radio 2’s Saturday morning programme.
Norton took home the payments for “presenter fees, production fees and royalties” from his production company So Television in the year to the end of July 2013. In total Norton received £2.33m, the year previous he received £2.61m.
He is also due a further £564,000 as a creditor of the company. So Television, which was acquired by ITV Studios two years ago in a deal worth up to £17m, made pre-tax profits of £1.8m. Revenues were £11.9m.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/may/09/bbc-graham-norton-fees-pay
Ken MacQuarrie – Director BBC Scotland
10 September 2014 – Salaries of BBC’s senior management revealed
In an effort to increase transparency, the BBC has today published the salaries of its senior managers and their expenses for the period January to March 2014.
The report shows that many of the 116 senior managers on the list are paid more than £200,000, with the Corporation’s director general, Tony Hall, being paid £450,000. Helen Boaden, director of radio, receives total remuneration of £352,000, James Harding, director of news and current affairs, receives £340,000 and Danny Cohen, director of TV is on £327,800.
Other senior staff on six-figure salaries include Bal Samra, commercial director and managing director taking £322,800, James Purnell, director of strategy and digital, on £295,000 and Ben Stephenson, controller of drama commissioning, on £247,800.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/managementstructure/biographies
Director General Lord Hall is paid £450,000 annually
3 December 2014 – Revealed: The 91 BBC executives who are paid more than the Prime Minister and 11 bosses get more than double his salary
The BBC pays 11 of its most senior bosses twice as much as the Prime Minister, it emerged yesterday. A further 80 executives take home more than David Cameron’s £142,500-a-year salary. The 91 bosses are taking home a combined £19million a year including bonuses. MPs said the figures would make hard-pressed families question the licence fee especially when programmes are facing the axe.
Top earners include Director-General Lord Hall, who earns £450,000, Anne Bulford, managing director of finance and operations, who is paid £395,000, and Peter Salmon, Director of England, who takes home £375,000. Those recruited to the top pay grade increased by almost 100, from 328 to 426 over the same timespan.
BBC 1 – Charlotte Moore, is on £240,000
The figures do not cover on-air stars, 39 of whom are paid more than £250,000 a year. These include Graham Norton, who is reportedly paid £2.6million for presenting his BBC1 and Radio2 shows, and Match of the Day host Gary Lineker, who is said to take home as much as £2million. Even Paul Hollywood is paid a better wage than the Prime Minister, earning £300,000 for his work on The Great British Bake Off and its various spin-offs.
Tory MP Philip Davies said: ‘The BBC has recently said they have cut their senior management to the bone and there are no more savings to be made there but it’s only at the BBC where you could cut senior management to the bone and end up with more people paid more than the Prime Minister than before you started. ‘It’s just extraordinary and goes to show how much fat there is. ‘What the BBC should do is be cutting out all of these managers, most of who if they disappeared no one would notice, and start delivering some value for money to the licence fee payer.’
Head of radio, Helen Boaden, is paid £352,900
Angie Bray, a Tory member of the Commons culture committee alongside Mr Davies, said: ‘It will be difficult for the BBC to continue to feel loved by the public if it continues to put licence payers’ money on salaries rather than on what people want them to spend the money on, which is good programming. ‘It does make it difficult for everybody to go on justifying this kind of funding if it’s just disappearing into managers’ pockets.’
An efficiency report published last week said the BBC has made savings of £1.1billion and would save a further £400million annually by 2016/17. Miss Bulford said no more savings could be made through cuts to pay, staff and property and that ‘tough choices’ would have to be made over which services were sacrificed. Through the licence fee, the BBC collected more than £3.762billion tax free last year, an increase of £70million from the previous 12 months.
Managing director, finance and operations, Anne Bulford, earns £395,000-a-year
15 July 2015 – BBC stars push wages bill close to £1bn
The BBC’s annual wage bill moved closer to the £1 billion mark last year, fuelled by a rise in staff numbers and salaries paid to its stars. Corporation bosses launched a counter-attack against government attempts to limit the BBC’s remit and funding yesterday, but it came as its annual report showed that the total salary bill increased from £955 million in 2013-14 to £976.5 million in 2014-15.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/medianews/article4498248.ece
Clockwise from top left: David Attenborough, Claudia Winkleman, Judi Dench, Chris Evans, Lenny Henry, Miranda Hart, Daniel Craig and J K Rowling
16 July 2015 – BBC organised celebrities’ protest letter
The BBC secretly helped to organise a celebrity letter warning David Cameron that plans to reform the corporation would damage Britain’s global standing, one of its top presenters has revealed. The BBC’s press office initially denied it had “anything to do” with the open letter, which was delivered to the prime minister on Tuesday and signed by stars including Dame Judi Dench and Sir David Attenborough. It warned “that a diminished BBC would mean a diminished UK” and was endorsed by over two dozen figures from the world of arts and entertainment including som of the BBC’s highest paid stars!
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/medianews/article4499526.ece
Danny Cohen, the BBC’s director of television, with his wife, Noreena Hertz, is said to have orchestrated an open letter to David Cameron
18 July 2015 – All-star attack backfires on BBC
The starting pistol was fired this week on a debate over the BBC’s future, but the corporation’s “unusually aggressive” campaign of self-defence risks backfiring before the conversation has truly begun, experts have warned. MPs and media commentators, including voices within the corporation, have accused BBC executives of “over-reacting” to a green paper from John Whittingdale, the culture secretary, which this week set out the parameters for the government’s ten-yearly review of the BBC charter, which expires at the end of next year.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/medianews/article4501631.ece
Sir Tom Jones. Paid via an independent company
21 July 2015 – BBC ‘hid’ salaries of stars paid more than £500,000
The salaries of some of the highest-paid stars on the BBC, including Sir Tom Jones and James Nesbitt, were left out of the corporation’s annual accounts because they are paid by independent production companies or the BBC’s commercial arm, it emerged yesterday.
The BBC said in its 2014-15 annual report that only nine stars are paid between £500,000 and £5 million, but this includes only those paid directly by the BBC. Not included are people paid by independent companies commissioned and paid by the BBC, even though their salaries still ultimately come from the corporation’s coffers.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/medianews/article4503539.ece
The BBC is happy to send between 50-100 people to jail each year.
16 August 2015 – Licence fee prosecutions overburden courts, argues Michael Gove
Michael Gove, the justice secretary, has raised concern that prosecutions for non-payment of the BBC licence are overburdening the courts. He has discussed the issue with John Whittingdale, the culture secretary, who is considering whether evasion of the licence fee should be decriminalised.
Before the election Whittingdale’s predecessor, Sajid Javid, set up a review to look into the potential impact of decriminalisation, and just after the election Downing Street indicated that it backed such a change, potentially replacing the offence with a civil fine. However, since then Whittingdale has had second thoughts over the possible impact on the BBC’s finances, after receiving the official review. The corporation has argued that it could lose up to £200m a year in extra non-payment.
In a sign of a possible cabinet split, it is understood that Gove has now made his case to Whittingdale about how decriminalisation could ease the caseload of magistrates courts. TV licence prosecutions account for 180,000 out of 1.5m magistrate cases each year. In evidence to the justice select committee in July, Gove said: “To what extent can we lift the burden on magistrates by taking some work out of court? One area which is a live area of debate is whether or not, at the bottom of the magistrates courts’ work, television licence non-payment should be decriminalised.”
No decision on whether to decriminalise the licence fee has yet been taken by Whittingdale. A spokesman for Gove declined to comment. But a BBC spokesman said: “The government’s own evidence-based review found that licence fee evasion should not be decriminalised and that the current system is broadly fair, proportionate and provides good value for both licence fee payers and taxpayers.”
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/aug/16/licence-fee-prosecutions-overburden-courts-michael-gove
caltonjock 
Leave a comment