Loadsamoney!
I'm reading The Finkler Question at the moment - a book by Howard Jacobson which won the Man Booker Prize in 2010.
Too early to say what I think overall - but at the start of the book there's an interesting comment on the BBC - which Howard Jacobson (a broadcaster as well as a writer) has been involved with over the years.
"The BBC, Treslove believed, made addicts of those who listened to it, reducing them to a state of inane independence. As it did those it employed. Only worse in the case of those it employed - handcuffing them to promotions and conceit, disabling them from any other life. Treslove himself a case in point. Though not promoted, only disabled."
The recent revelations about inflated salaries at the BBC - suggest there is more than a ring of truth to Jacobson's comments.
Andrew Marr, for example, is apparently paid £600,000 a year for his current affairs programme on Sunday mornings - which of course take up more time than just a few hours once a week - but £600,000 seems more than a tad over the top.
Now I like Jeremy Paxman - he's one of my heroes actually - not least for his verbal mugging of Michael Howard over the controversial 'sacking' and treatment of a Prison Governor - when Howard was a Tory Home Secretary.
But Jeremy Paxman is on a even bigger salary - £800,000 apparently - and no amount of hero worship can justify that kind of celebrity pay package - not in my view anyway.
Because it distorts other pay structures at the Beeb - or at least some of them.
What happens is that all kinds of senior officials demand inflated salaries - to such an extent that people in charge of important but essentially routine management functions - such as finance and human resources - end up on whacking great pay packages worth £250,000 a year and more.
Yet those at the very bottom end - remain as low paid as ever.
Too early to say what I think overall - but at the start of the book there's an interesting comment on the BBC - which Howard Jacobson (a broadcaster as well as a writer) has been involved with over the years.
"The BBC, Treslove believed, made addicts of those who listened to it, reducing them to a state of inane independence. As it did those it employed. Only worse in the case of those it employed - handcuffing them to promotions and conceit, disabling them from any other life. Treslove himself a case in point. Though not promoted, only disabled."
The recent revelations about inflated salaries at the BBC - suggest there is more than a ring of truth to Jacobson's comments.
Andrew Marr, for example, is apparently paid £600,000 a year for his current affairs programme on Sunday mornings - which of course take up more time than just a few hours once a week - but £600,000 seems more than a tad over the top.
Don't you think?
Likewise with Jeremy Paxman - Newsnight's anchorman - on BBC 2 four nights a week.Now I like Jeremy Paxman - he's one of my heroes actually - not least for his verbal mugging of Michael Howard over the controversial 'sacking' and treatment of a Prison Governor - when Howard was a Tory Home Secretary.
But Jeremy Paxman is on a even bigger salary - £800,000 apparently - and no amount of hero worship can justify that kind of celebrity pay package - not in my view anyway.
Because it distorts other pay structures at the Beeb - or at least some of them.
What happens is that all kinds of senior officials demand inflated salaries - to such an extent that people in charge of important but essentially routine management functions - such as finance and human resources - end up on whacking great pay packages worth £250,000 a year and more.
Yet those at the very bottom end - remain as low paid as ever.
