I'm sure there's never been an ideal time for the BBC to reveal how much it's paying its top radio talent but
right now must be the worst time of all. The argument about having to pay top dollar in order to compete with offers from commercial rivals never did hold water. Where else could John Humphreys and Chris Moyles hope to earn a fraction of what they do presenting daily shows on a publicly-funded national broadcaster? But now that the commercial tide has gone out their, er, packages are going to look even more anomalous.
Personally I'd rather not know what John Humphreys, Evan Davis, Adam & Joe and all the rest are being paid. It's bound to effect how we perceive those presenters and their programmes.
ReplyDeleteAs my esteemed chum Mr M said in the pub last night, offer someone 100k a year to do Jonathan Ross' gig, they'd do it like a shot. I find it very hard to believe the Mail's estimate that Sara Cox is on 200k a year for one show a week.
ReplyDeleteWhen people want to hide their earnings it's usually guilt or embarrassment, whatever they say.
ReplyDeleteIs that what Mel Smith looks like now? Christ.
ReplyDeletehearing that news presenter gets 93K a year was surprising I had to look her up to find who she is and I still can't remember her name. The market argument is nonsense.
ReplyDeleteTerry Wogan has this millions-strong secret society thing going on, though. They even have their own language and he fosters such a sense of belonging, so I suppose he is probably worth most of what they're paying him.
ReplyDeletePersonally I can't understand a word he's going on about, and find it very hard to find anything worth listening to in the morning. Radio 3 should bring back Andy Kershaw and put him on the breakfast show- he was a true talent.