Jonathan Ross and his salary

This article also appears on the redoubtable www.waleshome.org website

Earlier this month whilst holidaying in Snowdonia, I was watching BBC’s Question Time. I was struck by the emerging political consensus on that evening’s programme that there was now a public “right” to know exactly how much BBC “stars” earned, as this would make the BBC somehow more “accountable”. This isn’t a new story but it’s one that’s starting to irritate. I think an alternative voice needs to be heard.

Media and current affairs junkies will recall that much of this came up last summer during the ongoing furore over politicians’ expenses. At a much trailed and reported McTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh television festival, that renowned champion of civil liberties and public sector broadcasting (ahem), Sky’s James Murdoch, took the opportunity to coruscate OfCom and the BBC in what can only be described as Orwellian terms.

Readers of the Daily Mail will also be aware (as their journalists seem to spend every waking moment finding opportunities to repeat it) that broadcaster Jonathan Ross will, in June of this year, end his contract with his employer. It’s a development that is largely being seen -by those who see things this way- as a victory for the silent moral majority over a supposed, crumbling, morally bankrupt edifice called the BBC.

I do not understand the logic that knowing how much a particular BBC “star” is paid somehow makes the BBC more accountable to the licence fee payers. It seems to me that all it does it create copy for the Daily Mail and their ilk, increase the blood pressure of “disgusted of Tunbridge Wells” and keep green ink manufacturers in business.

Ask yourself this: would Wales Today’s avuncular Derek Brockway be a better weatherman if you knew how much was transferred into his bank account every month?

Would Jonathan Davies have screamed any louder at Shane Williams’s winning try against Scotland the other week if he thought that his salary might be affected by his “performance”?

No, of course not. These are of course deeply silly points but they are only as silly and puerile as this debate has become.

I’m not arguing that the BBC should not be accountable. On the contrary, its original Reithian message seems as resonant today as it was back in the early days of the corporation. But a list of salary details is not accountability: it is the politics of the curtain twitchers.

Be under no illusion: there are many in this debate who have a more pernicious and troubling (to this writer, anyway) agenda. This is far more than a debate about expenditure and better management of one of the UK’s most important organisations. There are many who have a clear political agenda to end the era of public sector broadcasting and to move to an entirely commercial free market.

To my mind, this is the real danger. Without a continued commitment to public sector broadcasting, we would lose the richness, variety and sheer vitality of our broadcasting output. I think it deeply unlikely that a commercial broadcaster would give over six hours of prime time television to an in depth and thoughtful history of Christianity, for example. Similarly, would we continue to enjoy local and regional newsgathering, or Welsh language programming or (insert your own personal choice here)? I doubt it. Let’s be honest-only the BBC could have done Hamlet on Boxing Day, Doctor Who in it or not. I think that’s a magnificent thing.

Proper accountability begins with a clear vision of mission and purpose; it continues with a sense of moral and community responsibility to provide a wide diversity of programming and it ends with getting the right people for the right jobs at the right price. Not the cheapest price, but the right price. This means setting salaries and contracts through a team of professional commercial directors with expertise of reward and incentivisation and knowledge of the business. It isn’t, I’m afraid, for you or I, irrespective of how well intentioned we believe we might be.

The BBC is a public sector body operating in a private sector world. The increased level of commercial competitiveness, the increased globalisation of entertainment and newsgathering, the influence and reach of internet based communications and the 24/7 demands of an increasingly hostile media means that the challenges for the BBC are greater than ever. In the end however the BBC must continue to deliver quality and distinctive programming to its audience- and if this means paying some presenters an apparent king’s ransom then this is something that not only do I think is a price worth paying, it’s a positive indication that the BBC continues to understand its mission and purpose and is brave to continue to do this against a tsunami of opprobrium.

We need to continue to have a debate about the BBC and our relationship with it. However, we need to do it in a way that recognises both its regulatory obligations as well as the very real very genuine commercial challenges and agendas, not just here in the UK but globally.

The debate over salaries may sell newspapers and start pub debates but it doesn’t make either for good governance or accountability. This is a classic case of needing to be careful about the law of unintended consequences. The only winners from the drive to know the pay of the BBC “talent” are owners of commercial channels and the anti- public sector broadcasting ideologues-I see no reason why we should help them line their pockets or write their editorials. By the way, buying the Daily Mail will cost you £40 a year more than the BBC licence fee. I know where I would like my money to go.