The price of big bonuses

Lisa Campbell

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Huge rewards for BBC execs send the worst signal to beleaguered programme-makers, writes Lisa Campbell.

With newspaper headlines screaming "recession" at the start of the week, the last thing the BBC needed to do was draw attention to its fat cat salaries.

In a climate of job cuts, house price slumps and pay restraints on public sector workers, the press had a field day, ignoring the bulk of the 152-page Annual Report to focus on the inflation-busting rises within the "British Bonus Corporation".

The question is how BBC management can justify awarding salary increases of 27% for some of its execs when the government caps public pay at 2%, a policy proving unpopular within many sectors, including health and teaching. After years of below-inflation wage deals, who can blame them?

The BBC thinks it can be the exception because the market pays higher salaries - something which, to an outsider, appears quite mind-boggling. If salaries well above the national average are not enough for them - not to mention the prestige and creative rewards of working for the BBC - then let them jump ship.

The decision by Mark Thompson to forego his bonus again was a wise one but was it enough to merely reduce the bonuses of those, such as Vision boss Jana Bennett, who were criticised over the trust scandals? Thompson's argument that Bennett has taken on "additional responsibilities" to justify her pay increase to £536,000 will not hold much sway with those who, through cuts or the need for multiskilling, have taken on more responsibilities without a commensurate pay rise.

However, while the economic climate may not have done well-paid execs any favours, it could prove convenient for the bigger story of the BBC's future and its need to cut costs. While Thompson pledged in the report that there will be no further job losses unless the economy deteriorates further, the prospect of a speedy recovery looks unlikely.

Amid a backdrop of nationwide job cuts, plummeting property prices and rising inflation, fuel and food bills, it's likely redundancies will be seen as inevitable and will be somewhat harder for unions to fight.

One encouraging sign from the report is that the BBC Trust, criticised of late for not showing enough muscle, is challenging the BBC to be more original and distinctive in its programming, singling out shows viewers originally felt to be innovative but are now done to death such as the talent searches spawned by How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?.

Distinctiveness and originality, or the lack of it, was also an issue in last year's report, and has resulted in the Trust setting it as one of the six objectives for the executive to achieve in the year ahead. So perhaps next year, we can tell a different story.

Lisa Campbell is editor of Broadcast