BBC transparency

Crossed posts, Gilly but saying almost the same thing.

Equalising upwards is better than discriminating downwards. Kicking the dog because the cat has had some kicks doesn't help heal the cat's bruises, and advocating pay cuts is unrealistic. Getting rid of the general imbalance of some enormous egos commanding astronomic salaries is a separate issue to restructuring the opportunities for achieving personal advancement.

The Beeb needs to do some thinking on their policies.

First, the differential between the highest paid presenters and the rest. Some prima donnas seem able to get a raise by holding them to ransom by threatening to go elsewhere. If they called a few bluffs and let them go, there might not be as many ridiculous pay packets. They could promote others into more prominent positions to fill any gaps, and keep future contracts to a reasonable level. General excellence is better than depending on the top egos.

Non-whites comprise 10.5 of the population in 2015. If there is not roughly this proportion at each level, then they need to think about why. Is it lack of talent? Hardly. Are they not attracting the applicants? If not, why not? Are they attracting applicants with talent but not employing them? If not why not? Are they employing them but not promoting them? If not why not? Do they need to improve their internal training courses?

Then they could publish another table which shows more detail. It should show the salary scales for different grades, and who is in each. That is missing from what we have just seen. Most of them are just names and faces, of people who are seen or heard presenting programmes, reading the news etc etc. We don't know their official job title and description, so it is not clear which of them are in equivalent positions and which are lower down the ranking (that is ranking of job hierarchy. While pay is important, hierarchy is too, and that influences pay.) The proportions of male/female, white/non-white can then be compared to their proportions in the general population.

About that 10.5%, bear in mind that not all other variations in people get equal treatment either. Gender and colour are visible, many other variations are not. For one thing, about 10% of the population is left-handed, but everything is biased toward right-handers.

I don't go with this gender pay gap thing at the BBC and would not like to see female salaries being raised in order to close this so called gap.

We are not talking about a female pen pusher /cleaner whatever being paid £8 per hour and a male being paid £10 for doing the same job! We are talking about over inflated egos, big mouths, giant personalities and (so called) talent with a few pretty faces or good looks thrown in for good measure thinking they are worth so much more. I could laugh my head off at these women beating on about how hard done by they are..... I mean bless them how do they survive?

No imo the way forward is to bring down the salaries of those at the top to meet those "nearer the bottom" (which is still a huge salary) and if they leave well they bloody well leave.

Isn't it funny how discrimination has been tolerated throughout history and yet any proposasl to address the issue in a practical way is deemed to be absolutely unfair and described as "reverse discrimination". It's a shame the same feeling of unfairness did not seem to be of concern to the general public when research evidenced the widespread discrimination that affects black people in the labour market and in general.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2017/jul/23/nicola-jennings-on-the-presenter-pay-gap-cartoon

Is she right?

John Humphreys has worked for the Beeb for over fifty years, he makes documentaries as well as ' Today' and mastermind

Another suggestion is that every time an interviewer interviews someone their respective slaries should be shown on screen.
Not many top bosses would be interviewed, then.

"To avoid the obscene inequalities of the market, just tax personal income above £150,000 at 95%. Sorted."

A letter in the Guardian.

"The ethnic imbalance visible at the top of the published pay list underplayed the scale of the problem, said one BBC anchorwoman, since a high number of leading white presenters were not included as most of their pay came through a production company hired by the BBC, rather than directly from the licence fee.

David Dimbleby, host of Question Time, is one such case. Other BBC game show presenters, television chefs, gardening experts and comedy panellists are also well paid via production companies."

Not completely transparent, then. There are probably more people off the list than on it.

"Last week the BBC’s head of news James Harding, whose salary is £340,000, is said to have admitted to staff that new salary deals had been agreed in haste before the list was published, to correct some of the anomalies exposed. These deals are not reflected in the released list of names. The Today programme presenter John Humphrys, for one, has confirmed taking a salary cut since the list was compiled."

Well done, John Humphrys.

www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jul/22/scandal-of-bbc-low-paid-ethnic-minority-staff-creating-as-much-anger-as-sexism

Exactly, whitewave.
I can't think of anyone who listens to Chris Evans. I know people who watch Lineker, but they would watch the same programmes whoever was presenting it.

ww I absolutely agree (would use emoji for handclap if only there was one!)

It would make sense for everyone to be paid the same - but saying that BECAUSE they are white and middle aged their pay should be cut is not the same as saying that, it is reverse discrimination.

Presumably the more money paid to already well paid presenters, the less money there is for developing/paying for quality programmes. I know where I would like the money to go.

Surely this conversation started with people complaining about how high the pay is to the named people. Is that not still the case? If so it would make far more sense for people earning shedloads (I'm thinking Chris Evans here) to be paid less, rather than people further down the income list being paid more? Isn't £150,000+ pa enough for anyone to live on?

If I said "I wonder why John is delivering the post. Could it be because James is not at work today?" would you interpret it as a fact that "James is not at work today" when I had no idea whether he was or not, but was offering it as my suggestion of a possible explanation?

I am not arguing, dj I am asking, is it a fact? From your link that isn't clear, it is put as a question. It could have been his shift to read the news whatever was in it.

Yes, equality is meeting in the middle. So it is not just lowering some people's pay.

If 9 out of 10 people employed to do a certain job are each worth £X then number 10 is also worth it.

The question of whether the whole ten of them are NOT worth as much as they are paid is a separate one.

I was puzzled at Andrew Neill's place in the list, considering how often he is on our screens.
Perhaps most of his pay is through a different company.

Equality shouldn't be downwards or upwards. Equality meets in the middle, surely.

What are you arguing? Is it not fact that he was the only top news anchor available not on the list, and he is black?
That seems quite obviously factual to me.

As it's about top pay, you cannot discount the two top paid from the list.
Would you think it acceptable that the CEO's pay in any company is discounted when looking at overall pay differentials in the company?

So equality must always be downwards, never upwards?

Is that a fact or is it the interpretation in the article of the fact that he was the one reading out the news at that time?

There was a question mark after that sentence "But was it also because this black male presenter was the only top anchor available who wasn’t on the corporation’s rich list, which led the news that day?" I interpret that as meaning that he was postulating what he thought might be they case, not presenting a fact. It suited his article to mention the non-white presenter announcing the figures.

That is what he said on the Marr show, that white middle aged men should be paid less, because all the men paid the most were white. He never mentioned colour apart from that. That is a separate issue mentioned in the Guardian article.

"In truth the disparity is far starker than the above figures suggest, because the BBC list included only those on the corporation’s payroll and didn’t include all those paid by independent production companies: the David Dimblebys, for instance; all those (almost all-white) game show and comedy panellists; the food and gardening show hosts. The 96 names on the “official” talent list are a tiny fraction of all the faces and voices on the BBC earning over £150,000. Think of a show – Masterchef, Have I Got News for You, The Apprentice – and the chances are that its stars’ fees will not have been revealed. And the chances are even greater that those stars will be white."

But saying the white middle-aged should be paid less sounds as though TY thought their pay should be docked, instead of the non-white pay rising to match for equal work.

I don't think I implied anything specifically about women being paid more. It must have been someone else.