The BBC Needs Reforming

Apparently, 47 civil servants at the BBC, the UK's main PBS service, earn more than the person who runs the country (indeed, many of them earn several times more than the Prime Minister of the UK), yet not a single one of them has been approached to run either the country's second PBS service, Channel 4 nor the largest commercial broadcaster, ITV, where there are vacancies at the top.

This seems to suggest that the 'commercial' pay rates at the top of the BBC are significantly uncommercial. But the costs at other points are also as absurd - a local reporter at the BBC will earn two to three times what the equivalent role at a local newspaper will earn (and there is no other local TV news any more, really, since ITV has given up the ghost). Not suprisingly, the local newspapers pay for the training of journalists who are then snapped up at much higher salaries by the BBC.

Along with its role in skewing the content industry in the UK so that commercial media at almost all levels, from local news to national news, from payment to staff to payment to 'talent', along with its worrying meddling in the technology marketplace with Project Canvas, it really is high time that the BBC was substantially reformed.

But who will do this ? With an election looming, none of the political parties are prepared to reflect the mood of the nation and tackle 'Auntie'. Doing away with one of the 47 would save more money that all of the money paid back in the 'MPs' expenses scandal'.

The BBC problem is decimating the UK as a centre for developing media for the future, stifling innovation and technology and making us little more than a small offshore market for US media.