Money talks

 

It's BBC 'rich list' day today, so it will be all about 'gender disparity' today no doubt.

The Times begins their report on the story by reporting that "more than 700 female staff have been awarded salary increases after lodging complaints": 

The number of women given pay rises after bringing formal or informal complaints since the gender pay scandal erupted in 2017 has now passed 700, according to Freedom of Information figures obtained by The Guardian, highlighting how widespread the problems had been. The BBC rushed to settle outstanding cases this summer as the departing director-general Lord Hall of Birkenhead wanted pay equality as one of his legacies.

That's a heck of a lot of women who'd been 'short-changed'! 

All the highest-rated comments beneath the Times article are unsympathetic and complain instead about how the BBC "so arrogantly and wastefully uses licence payers’ money". The highest-rated of all says:

This article singularly fails to address the far more important issue, namely the sheer extravagance in awarding so many employees salaries in the hundreds of thousands, paid for by way of a compulsory tax on the British public, many of very limited means and many who have no interest in the BBC and its so called "talent".

This is because, as the Daily Mail headlines it: 

Bill for BBC stars' pay soars by £1m: Bosses admit 76 presenters earn more than the Prime Minister: 

Annual report reveals 76 BBC presenters earn more than PM’s wage of £150,000. 

*******

Update: That said, the Telegraph has a different take: 

BBC to cut number of senior managers earning £150,000 or more

Director-general Tim Davie believes the corporation has too many highly-paid executives

The paper quotes "a source" at the BBC:

The organisation needs to be leaner and more efficient and we want to achieve that in a much more radical way than in the past. We will move at a greater pace.

The figures on the £150,000 list haven’t moved much from the previous year and we need to go in a clear southerly direction. Our public service headcount needs to be smaller and that includes senior leadership. Those figures must come down.