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FIFTY BBC executives earn more than Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s wedge of £189,994, with 26 on salaries of more than £250,000; collectively, their pay bill comes to £14.3 million. Director general Mark Thompson is on £647,000 basic, with perks and benefits lifting his overall package to £816,000. His deputy, Mark Byford, is paid £513,000. BBC Vision director Jana Bennett — the woman responsible for the phone-in rip-off scandals — takes home £536,000. Radio 2 chief Lesley Douglas, who walked the plank over the Russell Brand affair, was on £280,000 until her departure. Alan Yentob is understood to be the BBC’s highest-paid director on £340,000. Director of news Helen Boaden, director of nations and regions Pat Loughrey, director of sport, Roger Mosey and director of global news Richard Sambrook have salaries in excess of £240,000 each. And John Smith, chief executive of BBC Worldwide, is paid £486,000, with a pension pot worth over £3 million. Can someone work that out in licence fees?
The private sector, of course, pays even more. BSKYB’s Jeremy Darroch is doing nicely out of his promotion from chief financial officer to chief executive in December last year: his total remuneration package — including pension, bonus and benefits — rose by almost 40 per cent to a grand total of £1.96 million last year; that compares to the £1.42 million in his former position.
Tim Bowdler is stepping down as chief executive of Johnston Press, Britain’s second-largest publisher of regional newspapers. He was paid more than £1 million last year, with half coming from performance-related bonuses.
Some hacks aren’t doing that badly. The Daily Mail has poached The Times’s chief football correspondent Martin Samuel — named sports journalist of the year at the 2008 British Press Awards — for a reported £400,000 a year.