h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The BBC are discussing the possibilities of publishing star's salaries by bands. They maintain that it is necessary to pay massive amounts of money to ensure they get the best talent.

Question is does a star earning £1 million per year really perform 10x better than if they were paid £100,000? Obviously not - it's a market-driven economy.

Of course there are many professions which are overpaid, while other seemingly more worthwhile jobs to society are underpaid. But even footballers earning £50K per week have the excuse that they have finite careers. I suppose some female presenters/actresses can put forward the same argument. Of course footballers are only getting those wages because TV bids so much money for the rights to show the games!

ultimately could the BBC get away with taking on raw talent at much lower prices? Would the public complain about the quality of programming or would it be not that much different?

It's who draws the crowds, though, isn't it? If someone is seen as being "hot" just now, the viewing figures will follow. It won't necessarily impact on the quality of the programme but more people will watch just because they like that particular person. And if that person is hot there will be competition to use them, meaning they can command ridiculous salaries. And who can blame them? If someone's willing to pay you £1 million to do your stuff, would you say "No, that's far too much, just pay me £100,000"?

So to answer the question, I reckon the BBC could take on raw talent without compromising programming quality, but if Mr Super-hot Star is on the other side, chances are that's where the viewers will go.

Deb

Absolutely agree with the comment about stars not declining mega-salaries and of course their agents help push those up. Going back to the footballers, I'm all for them being paid enormous sums of money if the money is there. At least they're the ones on the pitch doing the work rather than give it to some executive or directors.

Follow up question is ... could the BBC get away with saying "We are here to produce quality television ... ratings are not important"?

Up to a certain point. They can put the case that there are important reasons to broadcast things which won't necessarily interest the majority of people, but if nobody's watching it doesn't matter how good the programmes are.

Big srars being paid big money in the BBC should do so only if they can add value. Unfortunately, the way the BBC is run 'adding value' means simply adding to viewing figures which is not what the BBC is/should be about.

Getting Graham Norton added no value what-so-ever as they simply made him into a front presenter for some talent shows then finally gave him a show that was exactly the same as his Channel 4 one.

J Ross did add some value for a time but slowly rested on his laurels and just coasted on crudity and cheap laughs. He can be a great interviewer, his is knowledgable but realises he doesn't need to do anything more - and the BBC haven't pushed him to do more.

Sitting on a sofa reading an auto-cue certainly doesn't deserve huge loads of cash...so farewell woman of The One Show.

There is actually more talent on Radio 4 than on BBC TV.

Not these days. They could when they had the Open University stuff on BBC2 and when Panorama and Horizon ('All the science all the drama') wasn't dumbed down to the extent that the presenter and the flashy visuals were more important than content.

The OU stuff back then will have encouraged young people to realise that although University lecturers had no dress sense the stuff they were teaching was fascinating whatever the subject.

Now we get fluffy OU stuff on the BBC like 'Coast' - good programme but not exactly challenging.

There is some good stuff on the BBC 'Being Human' which would normally be a BBC2 show and 'Only Connect' on BBC4 but they are always stuck away and not advertised much. Presumably because they assumed demographic of the audience wouldn't get it 'good' ratings on BBC1/BBC2.

If someone was brave enough to commission 'University Challenge' today it would be stuck on BBC4...who wants to see a bunch of university lay-abouts answering poncy questions??? And just loom at how many Oxbridge colleges enter...unfair to the other Universities who can only enter one team.

And 'The Great Egg Race' - someone would say - look at Scrapheap Challenge...the premise of 'The Great Egg Race' is just too small and boring. We want big and flashy. How about having a celebrity on the team every week?

'Now Get Out Of That' - nah, that's just a corporate outward bound course - we've all been on them. No-one would want to see something that you have to go on at work just to get a promotion.

The main reason for OU stuff coming off BBC Two was a technological one - the OU now uses the internet, CDs and DVDs to provide the material that used to be shown during the night on the BBC.

It makes it a lot more convenient for students!

Having followed Jonathon Ross since The Last Resort in the 80s (I was more interested in someone else appearing on the show) I can confirm his interviewing style hasn't changed. He is still more interested in his questions than his guest's answers and I can't understand why people want to watch him constantly interrupt someone.

Someone else has also said this, but I caught a Graham Norton show recently as I was interested in a guest. Er, that seemed exactly like So Graham Norton I was watching in the 90s. Why did he move channel? Must have been more money, and maybe both of those presenters would not have got the ratings on C4 that they do on BBC 1, but I can't see they are doing anything different on their shows (except maybe being less rude and/or sweary), so no, I don't think they should be earning any more money.

Perhaps it's the quality of the guests they attract - would new talent attract big names? Probably not. But why does the BBC need big names when they don't earn anything out of it? Why is my licence fee paying for other people to have a big house and a celebrity lifestyle? If the Beeb can't keep ratings without paying stupid money to people then get rid of the BBC, or put ads on there, so the big names at least bring an income with them.

King Bomba - with a very sturdy handrail
T

You are indeed correct. It wold be inTeresting to still have some courses on the BBC. It would fill airtime and most likely get the OU some new students.

Mina

Norton got poached for a tidy sum otherwise he would not have moved. The BBC ran around punching the air and then realised they hadn't got anything new or different to do with him. I think they waited until people 'forgot' he used to be a chat show host then gave him a chat show. Huge waste of money.




The problem is the BBC is now full of media study career people who think they know what the public want, work on KPIs and viewing figures.

You only have to listen or watch any type of points of view programme on TV or radio to realise that any one interviewed from the BBC basically says they are right and the viewer is wrong.

The DOGs(digital on-screen graphic) issue is the big one as well as the Graham Norton-gate 'coming' up next cartoons that people hate but will not be removed.

DOGs, the BBC say, are important as with so many channels viewers want to know/don;t know what channel they are watching hence the DOG in the left hand corner or sometimes a 3rd of the way into the picture. The cartoon 'on next' thing has been copied from Virgin with that annoying red devil thing. Mainly I think because someone has come across from that area into the BBC.

Not sure what the cartoon thing is you mention, but the DOGs are crap. If people wanted to know what channel they were watching the whole time they wouldn't keep buying tellies that no longer tell them.

Or if they weren't sure they could just click the info button which would soon tell them.

I really notice when watching some of the old programmes on the murkier channels how much on screen shite gets in the way of the action, so film makers must be working round the bloody things!

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they are hot just now because they are in the lime light

turn round to them and say....nah we dont want to pay that, well pay 10X less to an up and commer, you'll be old hat in 6 months without BBC publicity, by the way mr ross whatever happend to your brother??, remeber him, he used to be a big fish in a small world!!! how is his new show on that late night shopping channel

The "celebrities" will be lining up to get on the chat shows no matter who hosts them. Do you think Tom Cruise gives a rat's ass about whether Norton, Ross or Winton is interviewing him? He's there to plug something, as are all the guests and they would show up because their publicist tells them to.

I'm willing to bet that they could get guest hosts in to do those shows for a tiny fraction of what they pay the middle-class luvvies just now - and audience figures would show no real difference.

Are we just talking about presenters, or people with a greater talent than talking to cameras? Actors, for example, are arguably stars, but are also able to, well, act. Matt Smith, anyone?


Geggs

Hmmm, bit dismissive there Geggs! I suspect it's a bit harder to talk to camera like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mIfatdNqBA than to be Tom Cruise, doing what Tom Cruise does all the time.

Yeah. Really didn't mean to be so dismissive, but those were the words that came out when I starting typing.

Oh well.


Geggs

Mina: here is the cartoon Norton thing. At the climax of the first Dr WHo Angels two parter, the point where Matt Smith's Dr really startes to show us what he can do and we get Norton...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8643684.stm

As for presenters/news readers reading off auto-cues I agree with Geggs.

Ahh. Couldn't see the vid, but I remember the uproar on Twitter...

"I'm willing to bet that they could get guest hosts in to do those shows for a tiny fraction of what they pay the middle-class luvvies just now - and audience figures would show no real difference."

Like 'The Friday Night Project' on Chanel 4 you mean?

Never seen it. I was thinking of HIGNFY. If wotsisface hadn't been doing things he oughtn't with whores and drugs, what's the betting he would be amongst the top 10 BBC presenters now? But has HIGNFY been harmed by his demise? No. In fact it's become clear that the real talent is whoever writes what's on the autocue. It's strange seeing a disparate bunch of actors/politicians/journalists all making the same style of dry, witty remarks.