BBC transparency

I can't find where Toby Young said that, dj. Do you have a link (silly question of course you do)

So why should the white middle-aged ones be paid less because they are white? Shouldn't the non-whites be paid to match because they are equal?

He said it on the Andrew Marr show this morning, on BBC1 of course.

This is a clever trick.

www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jul/20/bbc-pay-list-to-shrink-next-year-as-earnings-from-bbc-studios-is-discounted

Pay equality means just that. It doesn't mean that women should be paid more. It means they should be paid the same for equal work.

Whe equal pensions came in, it was expected that men's age would come down to equal that of women, not that women's would go up to equal men's.

If they had just put them all into one "over £150,000" bracket without differentiating, there would have been 10.5% non-whites in it. In the population there are 11%.

So the number in the BBC doing pretty well is in line with their population representation. Perhaps the adverse publicity will push those 11 further up into the doing very well category.

I would discount Messrs Evans and Lineker. Their preposterous salaries are an outlier on the graph.

So what do you think about the fact that Clive Myrie had to read the news when that list came out because he was the only BBC newsreader not on the list?

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.

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."

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.

So equality must always be downwards, never upwards?

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?

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

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.

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.

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?

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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

"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.

"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.

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

A letter in the Guardian.

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.

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