Vocal Voices

So Samira Ahmed has won her case for equal pay for her work on Newswatch vis-à-vis Jeremy Vine on Points of View. He got £3,000 per show where she got *just* £440.

I have watched both and they are pretty much the same. People write in to, mostly, complain. The BBC then puts up a wonk who totally ignores the complaint and spends ages justifying the unjustifiable. So it is probably right that she should be paid the same as him.

However, the bigger question is why the BBC would be paying anybody, man or woman, £12,000 per hour, yes, per hour, for anything let alone reading out a few letters?

It is long past time that an independent body of viewers got in there and sorted out the BBC's pay scales.

The BBC pays ridiculously high salaries to many of its employees, had accepted a deal from the Government which supposedly included free TV licenses for the over 75s, and yet has now reneged on the deal claiming it cannot afford to give free TV licenses to the over 75s.. Time to cut costs and honour its promises.

Can't blame Samir Ahmed. She was (and very obviously was) doing exactly the same work and getting paid way less.
Jeremy Vine is horrendously overpaid though, he's one of the BBC's top earners! Why?
Even some no mark like Jason Mohammed is paid £250,000 plus!

The BBC has 108 members of staff earning over £150,000, that's more than the PM. It also has 77 "stars", a lot of them auto-cue news readers or DJs, earning (getting) more than a government minister (£90k).... some many times more - Lineker at £1.75million. Many of them also have 'outside' work as well. That's £50+millions just for them. Then there are the self-employeds for whom figures are hard to get - the useless V Derbyshire and Alex Jones as well as Carrie Gracie et al: hundreds of them.

Time to rein them in.

Who's Jason Mohammed?

Quite agree with all your comments - the Lineker pay in particular is just crazy. That's Harry and Megan territory …...

TheOstrich wrote:Who's Jason Mohammed?
.

Exactly! (If you really don't know he presents Final Score on Saturdays and err something else).
If he vanished next week no one would notice.
Oh yes, and morning presenter Dan Walker. £200,000 pa plus the £200 a day it costs in taxis ferrying him from his home in Sheffield to the studios in Salford.

The 'talent' argument does not wash - does it?.

Look North must have 20+ presenters / weather / roving reporters of various types, yet even the most seen are only on our screens for a few hours per week but I bet none of them are only on a liveable wage via the BBC. Of course they do work behind the scenes in order to present the shows, but even the lowest gets way more than the average wage, and for fewer hours. Part-time working eh?

cromwell wrote:

TheOstrich wrote:Who's Jason Mohammed?
.

Exactly! (If you really don't know he presents Final Score on Saturdays and err something else).

Thanks for that, Crommers - no, I really didn't know! At that time on a Saturday, I'm usually concentrating trying to find my way out of a football club car park somewhere ....

Workingman wrote:The 'talent' argument does not wash - does it?.

Look North must have 20+ presenters / weather / roving reporters of various types, yet even the most seen are only on our screens for a few hours per week but I bet none of them are only on a liveable wage via the BBC. Of course they do work behind the scenes in order to present the shows, but even the lowest gets way more than the average wage, and for fewer hours. Part-time working eh?

No that argument doesn't wash at all.
Look North is my hobby horse I'm afraid.
It is hopelessly, epically useless. If you want to find out what happened today in West Yorkshire, you'll never find out by watching Look North.
They just do features, and usually the same features.
Cycling is wonderful. Hillsborough disaster. Orgreave picketing. Food banks. Medical tragedies (they do love these).
Oh yes, schoolchildren. The font of all knowledge according to Look North, who get into more schools than a regiment of kiddie fiddlers.
And not only are they grossly overstaffed as WM points out, they've got a separate Look North based in Hull!
And they are sexist. The lead presenter is Harry Gration. Aged 69, looks 99.
You will never, ever find a woman presenter on the BBC who looks as knackered as Harry. He looks like he's been dead for three days!

I think that's all for the moment!

I quite like Harry. I hear that they are going to cryanowotsit him and defrost him at 5 pm daily ready for LN at 6:30 pm. They are also going to do it to 'elbows' Keely and 'must I cross my legs' Ami so that he's in good company.