The hardships of being a Beeb executive
The BBC's Director General, Mark Thompson, has said salary is an obstacle to filling some of its top executive positions.
It is thought that the BBC is offering in excess of £300,000 per year salary for its Director of Vision position and feels this salary is inadequate to attract the best candidates. Thompson himself has waived his own bonuses which means his own salary this year is a mere £619,000. To put those figures into context, David Cameron's annual salary for running the country is £142,000, less than a quarter of that paid to Thompson for running the BBC.
The BBC was criticised by MPs this month for the handling of its Digital Media Initiative which is intended to allow its staff to "create, share and manage content from their desktops". The project, which was put out to tender and won by Siemens, was intended to cost £81.7 million but deliver benefits to the value of £99.6 million, giving a net benefit of £17.9 million. However, the project has been taken back in house, is running two years late, and costs have now risen to £133.6 million. In other words, even if it delivers its full benefits, the project will still have cost the BBC some £38 million.
The BBC has done marvellous things with new media and the BBC website is one of the most important sites in Britain, but we should not lose sight of the colossal sums of money it is spending to achieve this.
28th April 2011