BBC Salaries - progress

[jean]

Most on this board who you'd expect to be able to translate it probably know it's nonsense and unstranslatable!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Watching John Humphries being interviewed,on BBC News yesterday, was most interesting. He responded to the interviewer by saying that in the grand scheme things, they didn't deserve to be paid more than many other people, but that the marketplace demanded high salaries.

However, J.H. showed no sign of waiving his excessive salary premium.

[ahinton]

Most on this board who you'd expect to be able to translate it probably know it's nonsense and unstranslatable!

One might argue that in is wilful meaninglessness it has a kind of parellel in the Postmodernist Generator (see http://www.elsewhere.org/journal/pomo/ ).

[Serial_Apologist]

One might argue that in is wilful meaninglessness it has a kind of parellel in the Postmodernist Generator (see http://www.elsewhere.org/journal/pomo/ ).

When it comes to the apparent obscurantisms of semiotics, I tend to find having my old friend Percy Verance to hand can come in quite useful.

[ahinton]

When it comes to the apparent obscurantisms of semiotics, I tend to find having my old friend Percy Verance to hand can come in quite useful.

Not sure that he'd be of much use when confronted with the Postmodernism Generator (best used only during power cuts, as was once said)!

[Serial_Apologist]

Not sure that he'd be of much use when confronted with the Postmodernism Generator (best used only during power cuts, as was once said)!

Actually, that's quite funny - rather like entering in upon one of the longer threads on this forum and not being able to adduce the meaning of the discussion from the latest posts. A kind of satire on there being much to say but not enough time in which to say it. I can see why people so often say, "I understand what you're saying", when they really don't, adding as if as an afterthought "but we are where we are"!

[Lat-Literal]

I still believe that there has been some high-jacking. To take just one example, the pay difference between John Humphrys and Sarah Montague is probably not dissimilar from the difference between Steve Wright or other BBC R2 presenters and Ken Bruce. Ken Bruce - one of the longest serving of them all - is not a woman. Clare Balding is not the individual on the list who is most directly comparable with Gary Lineker. That person is the lesser paid Jason Mohammed whose main role is also to present football programmes although he does some news work too or if not other football presenters who have not even made it onto the list. 62 to 34 or whatever it is on what is clearly a list that doesn't cover many programmes could hardly be said to be wholly out of sync with the current state of play. That is, far more women are now in broadcasting but there is still some way to go. It's the societal position.

Notwithstanding Mary Berry, Sandi Toksvig, Mel and Sue, Jo Brand, Kirsty Young, Kirsty Wark, Orla Guerin, Stephanie Flanders before she departed, Louise Minchin, Nigella Lawson, Jenny Murray, Jane Garvey, Winnifred Robinson, Riz Lateef, Hazel Irvine, Anita Anand, Victoria Derbyshire and a whole host of others who are likely to have been on considerable amounts - Sara Cox once received £200,000 for two weekend shows - the changes are very arguably too slow. But actually if that list had been comprehensive and if it had been 50-50 on that list then that pay would have been skewed towards what is a substantial minority. Very powerful wealthy women like Harriet Harman are not always the best people to argue the case for women. They especially seize on how other women who earn hundreds of thousands of pounds each year are hard done by comparatively speaking. Many of the public who wonder how they are going to pay their bills will have no sympathy for the supposed plight of Clare Balding or even Sarah Montague who may well be earning in excess of £100,000 pa while they will be thinking that the amounts that Lineker, Evans, Vine and Humphrys are paid is outrageous. Also, some of the differentials are down to the individuals themselves. Perhaps those on less money although more than the vast majority of British people - male and female - need to start considering whether they are represented by the best agents.

In terms of the bigger picture, the BBC boys and girls can cry wolf too many times. It should be worth recalling here just how many women have been in senior positions in the BBC, controlling vast swathes of the Corporation although never, I think, BBC R3 where being male hasn't ever delivered significant additional resources. Who was presenting the R1 breakfast show before Chris Moyles? I can't recall now and nor would most of the general public but you can bet your bottom dollar that at the time that person was regarded by the powers that be as irreplaceable talent. Then it was Chris Moyles. How on earth could we let Moylsie go? Then he went and a week later he was all but forgotten. Now it's Grimshaw who must be held onto as if the very life of the Corporation depended him. No. Here today. Gone tomorrow. Could be gone today if the managers were so minded. The position on R1 might even improve.

If any presenter has serious illness or is on holiday, then replacements have to be and are immediately found. No problem at all. What the attitude really reveals and it is a damning indictment is that BBC managers are happy to cave in to the narrowest and costliest worldview in which new broadcasters can't be found or at least trained to carry forward any success the BBC achieves; there are only a few hundred people who at any time could be right for the BBC; those rather than being presented as of a distinctive type which BBC presenters should always be are to the last man and woman seen internally as "national treasures" when only a few of them are; and linked to that notion every well paid individual is bigger than the BBC team. It is the modern football outlook. That idea of however wild the market becomes people will weather it because of loyalties handed down from generation to generation.

That of itself is not necessarily a bubble that won't burst although it seems indestructible. We have already seen occasional boycotts from supporters especially in Liverpool. The problem for the Beeb is that the loyalties to it are not necessarily as strong as in football. People like it. Some like me love it more than any football team. But the model needs to be adjusted - I don't think it needs radical transformation - to prevent it being constantly challenged by those who don't care for its future. The distinctiveness in its broadcasting which, I believe, still partly exists needs to be matched by a distinctiveness in leading the way for everyone out of the extreme markets. Currently all they do is follow the herd and moan about their woes.

[ahinton]

Actually, that's quite funny - rather like entering in upon one of the longer threads on this forum and not being able to adduce the meaning of the discussion from the latest posts. A kind of satire on there being much to say but not enough time in which to say it. I can see why people so often say, "I understand what you're saying", when they really don't, adding as if as an afterthought "but we are where we are"!

Not to mention "enough is enough" and, as the Welsh say, "Brecon means Brecon"...

[kernelbogey]

Most on this board who you'd expect to be able to translate it probably know it's nonsense and unstranslatable!

Indeed. But anyone wishing to claim tax relief for Letraset will be familiar with this.

[Lat-Literal]

Seeing that only the columnist has been fired, I would have thought that people who subscribe to this publication might now wish to vote with their feet, so to speak:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40768352

I really don't know how some people get their jobs - proven holocaust deniers are clearly totally untrustworthy in terms of having any relationship with factual truths.

[oddoneout]

Judging by comments I have read elsewhere there seems to be a fair amount of support for the idea that the 'discrepancy' could be addressed by bringing the male pay down to the female level, rather than hiking up the female rate, reasoning that none of them is exactly paid a pittance.
I have mixed views about this. It does enable questions to be asked but since the figures don't give the full story about any given individual's total income(or even indirect BBC pay), and it looks as if the commercial sector isn't going to reciprocate, I am dubious about the validity or usefulness of any conclusions drawn.

[P. G. Tipps]

Seeing that only the columnist has been fired, I would have thought that people who subscribe to this publication might now wish to vote with their feet, so to speak:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40768352

I really don't know how some people get their jobs - proven holocaust deniers are clearly totally untrustworthy in terms of having any relationship with factual truths.

Those who actually read Myers' article might have been under the impression that, rather than being 'antisemitic', he was being quite complimentary about Jews in business .. ie, that they are not generally taken for fools like the rest of us.

If, say, the word 'Scots' had replaced the word 'Jews' I doubt we would have heard much about it and the journalist would still be in his place.

However, in today's somewhat hysterical social climate, Myers was undoubtedly guilty of gross naivety, quite astonishing for a journalist whose first priority is to be aware of his audience. That is essential if one wants to hold onto one's job for any length of time. Journalism is a business itself and one cannot always say what one really thinks, however regrettable that might be.

As for the 'sexism' charge it might have been wise to then not repeat exactly the same mistake ...

[jean]

...If, say, the word 'Scots' had replaced the word 'Jews' I doubt we would have heard much about it and the journalist would still be in his place...

I think you're wrong about that, but we'll never know, because no-one was tasteless enough to suggest that her Scottishness had anything to do with Kirsty Wark's making it into the top 100.

But as an antisemite, Myers has form:

An Irish journalist fired from his post on Sunday morning after penning an antisemitic attack on two British Jewish TV presenters is a known Holocaust denier, whose article denying the Nazi genocide of six million Jews was removed only today from the website of the Irish newspaper that had hosted it since 2009.

Social media users took to Twitter to point out that the Holocaust denial article by journalist Kevin Myers – in which he opined, “There was no holocaust (or Holocaust, as my computer software insists) and six million Jews were not murdered by the Third Reich. These two statements of mine are irrefutable truths” – had finally disappeared from the online pages of the Irish Independent...

[P. G. Tipps]

I think you're wrong about that, but we'll never know, because no-one was tasteless enough to suggest that her Scottishness had anything to do with Kirsty Wark's making it into the top 100.

But as an antisemite, Myers has form:

An Irish journalist fired from his post on Sunday morning after penning an antisemitic attack on two British Jewish TV presenters is a known Holocaust denier, whose article denying the Nazi genocide of six million Jews was removed only today from the website of the Irish newspaper that had hosted it since 2009.

Social media users took to Twitter to point out that the Holocaust denial article by journalist Kevin Myers – in which he opined, “There was no holocaust (or Holocaust, as my computer software insists) and six million Jews were not murdered by the Third Reich. These two statements of mine are irrefutable truths” – had finally disappeared from the online pages of the Irish Independent...

I may indeed be 'wrong' ... that's perfectly possible even when I'm pretty sure I'm right ... but I do insist on reading "controversial" articles in full rather than selective quotes taken entirely out of context by opponents.

As I said in another place one often has to look for oneself for the whole truth ...

http://www.fpp.co.uk/Austria/arrest_2005/Irish_Indep_220206.html

However, maybe it's also wise for me to now say no more on what is a completely different issue from huge salaries for a lucky few at the BBC!

[jean]

Well, thanks for that, Tippsy.

I'm amazed you seem to think your proudly-presented new evidence exonerates Myers