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Stars’ wages send cost of BBC radio soaring
Nicholas Cecil05.02.09
Bumper salaries lavished on top BBC presenters are making their shows more expensive than commercial rivals, according to a damning report.
The National Audit Office found that Wake Up To Wogan on BBC Radio 2 and Radio 1's Chris Moyles Show costs more to produce per hour than six other breakfast programmes broadcast by commercial companies.
The bill for Chris Evans's drive-time show on Radio 2 was also far higher than programmes used as comparators by the spending watchdog.
Tory MP Edward Leigh, chairman of the all-party Commons public accounts committee, said: “The BBC must account for why it spends much more money per hour than its commercial rivals on breakfast and drive-time shows.
“It is already clear from the NAO report that this is primarily down to presenters' remuneration.”
Mr Leigh also branded “scandalous” that the BBC had sought to impose a “gagging order” on the NAO by insisting on unacceptable conditions to release full details of the cost of radio programmes.
Documents leaked three years ago, though, showed Wogan was on £800,000 a year, Evans £540,000 and Moyles £630,000. The BBC spent £462 million in 2007-08 on 16 radio stations, or 14 per cent of its licence fee income. The NAO's inquiry found that the BBC had met its target to cut radio costs by £11.7 million by 2007-08 but concluded that significant savings could still be made.
“The BBC's costs are significantly more expensive than commercial programmes in the same slots, largely because of the costs of presenters and other staff, reflecting an editorial choice on the BBC's part to take account of the nationwide remit of its network stations,” it said.
Wake Up To Wogan cost about twice as much as the most expensive commercial programme, produced by a major city station, with salaries accounting for around two thirds of the BBC's show.
The Chris Moyles Show was also more costly, though its salary costs were slightly lower. Chris Evans's Radio 2 show was almost off the scale compared with the commercial sector, though the NAO only managed to get figures from three stations.
The BBC, though, stressed its licences meant costs could rise and highlighted how Radio 2 had to “provide an understanding of the context in which music is created and its cultural impact”.
It added: “This will increase the cost of Radio 2 relative to a commercial station that does not have such an imperative.” The spending watchdog also noted varying costs within the BBC for making similar programmes. The average cost per hour of drama was £14,969 for The Archers on Radio 4, yet for Radio 3 it was £23,965, 60 per cent higher, and £10,496 for Radio 7.
BBC in-house drama productions were more expensive than those produced by independent companies — by 29 per cent for Radio 3 and eight per cent for Radio 4. Drama programmes made in Manchester were marginally higher than those in London, both costing on average more than £24,000 an hour.
For music, the median cost per hour was £1,486 on Radio 2, 54 per cent higher than for Radio 1 on £966, with £650 for Radio 3. Radio 2 comedy was costliest at £24,212 an hour on average, 15 per cent more than Radio 4's figure of £21,000.
The BBC Trust, which oversees the Corporation, said: “We agree that the BBC Executive could do more to evidence how they reach their assessments on what constitutes an appropriate cost for programmes, particularly for those genres where costs do vary significantly across the different radio stations.”
The cost of programmes includes wages, equipment, travel, support crews, commissioning, copyright payments, newsgathering, marketing, running the station and physical transmission.
Reader views (12)
What this article fails to report, and possible what the NAO failed to report is the relative listening figures. If you worked out the cost per listener, then the BBC would most likely come out far cheaper than commercial stations.
Radio 1 has listening figures of 10.5 million, Radio 2 of 13.5 million. The biggest commercial network is Heart which only has 6.9 million. Absolute Radio (virgin) only has 1.8million.
We should be proud of the BBC - not that everything they do is great - but it is significantly better than the bulk of the dross provided through purely commercially funded programmes.
The BBC is slated by other media because other media has a vested interest in seeing it done down.
- Liberal And Proud, London, UK
Arrogant and talentless Chris Moyles earnes over 600,000 a year, when the average nurses salary is 20,000. I will never understand how society has lost it's sense of who is valuable and what they are worth.
- Nick, Peterborough
non of these planks are worth this sort of money, in fact, no one is.I f I have to switch off every time these planks are on, I might as well not own a radio, which means I have to miss out on other stuff.Get rid of the present management and put in properly intelligent people to run the bbc.
- Essexkid, Romford,essex
Any Muppet could do that job. Why pay arrogant so-called 'celebrities' excessive wages with our money when you listening to 24 hours of 'The Muppets' would be far more entertaining.
- Tangomike, Kensington, London
As they have such enormous numbers of listeners I for one do not begrudge them the money. Personally, I cannot face the day ahead without my dose of Wogan. As for his rumoured £800,000 for entertaining 9,000,000 listeners, I say: Is that all? I would be willing to bet that commercial broadcasters would pay double for audience figures that BBC Radio commands. Unfortunately, your tuning button is negotiable even if the Licence Fee is not.
- Gordo, Birmingham, UK
These costs are not justified and should be stopped. The argument that the BBC is paying "market rates" and has to compete in the "market" is false. The BBC, by being the largest producer and broadcaster is the market. By adopting this policy, all the BBC is doing is fueling wage inflation - at our expense.
- Jeremy E, London
I fail to see what it is about these presenters and their talk shows which can justify tyem being paid these hige salaries. Its like winning the lottery every week for some of them. How much do the independent broadcasters pay their presenters and how much do the advertisers pay for them to pay salaries like these which has to be passed on to the buying public.
- Awesome Geronimo, Leeds UK
The BBC must fund itself, then and only then will it worry about its absurd salaries and dismall programming.
- Nick Nack Paddy Mac, Kilburn, London UK
Jonathon Dross is either massively overpaid or enormously undertalented depending on which way you look at it.
- Bob, Cheam
It is immoral that taxpayers money is used to pay telephone number salaries end of story. £242 Million Pounds represents 15 state of the art schools every year - now that would be beneficial to the taxpayer and society! I cannot see that there is even an argument.
- Simon, london
The BBC executives display contempt for the licence fee payers by continuing to employ odious presenters like Ross. The majority of viewers resent the mis-use of the licence fee and find broadcasting "gutter level" humour totally unacceptable. I find it astonishing that the director general considers such idividuals "entertaining". Standards could not sink any lower.
- R.F., Yorks, UK
For goodness sake, they are supposd to be a public service not a commercial undertaking. Keep Radios 2, 4 and the World service, plus Beeb 1 & 2 TV and flog off the rest. The BBC has no place in the commercial world, especially as they are smothering all 'local' alternatives with their obverbearing services. Clip dem wings!
- Beebophile, Engerland
