BBC is a great cultural institution

As a recipient of the concession myself, I am not terribly sanguine about the proposal but protesting about high salaries is to miss the target.

On that subject, however, BBC Director General, Tony Hall’s £450,000 salary may lie beyond most people’s dreams but it is dwarfed by the £900,000 awarded to Alex Mahon, CEO of Channel 4, which is a vastly smaller organisation. ITV’s newly appointed CEO, Carolyn McCall, is also to receive £900,000, I understand.

Those generous salaries are but chicken feed, however, to the CEO of Sky, Jeremy Darroch, who picks up £16 million per annum, plus assorted share options. Sky Sport’s budget alone, is larger than the whole of the BBC’s programming budget and on the domestic level the annual rental to receive its programmes amounts to roughly six times the licence fee.

More importantly, the licence fee is a statutory instrument, established by Act of Parliament; non-payment is a criminal offence.

Furthermore, the institution of the free licence for over-75s, was also instituted by Parliament. Passing on the cost and responsibility to the BBC, and then to criticise the corporation, strikes me as disingenuous and frankly cowardly. There may even be a case to argue that modifying the concessionary scheme without the agreement of Parliament is, in fact, illegal.

It should also not be forgotten that the Government acted in a similar way by offloading the cost of the World Service from the Foreign Office to the BBC. Ironically, belatedly recognising the importance of the global soft power embodied in the World Service, the Government subsequently boasted of its provision of an annual £85 million to “enhance” a service for which it formerly didn’t want to be responsible.

The BBC’s proposals may be tactless and heavy-handed and its governance should no doubt be scrutinised.

Nevertheless, heaping sole blame on the corporation is largely misdirected, given that in comparison to its rivals its resources are actually very limited. To me, it is one of the greatest cultural institutions on the planet. Think just of the Promenade Concerts and the Reith Lectures.

Paul Pascoe, Shrewsbury

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