Rather, his salary reflects the fact that he can not be paid less than his fellow executives, for reasons of mutual esteem.I have nothing against high salaries, and indeed hope to earn one myself one day Markets work, on the whole. He probably would not have done it for less, given his other options.But does the same apply to Tony Hall? After all, his pay included a pounds 19,000 long-service award because he has clocked up a quarter of a century. It is fair to ask whether Auntie is really operating in the same market. One of the members of the executive committee, Rupert Gavin, was brought in from BT a year ago, with the help of a pounds 50,000 golden hello, to run the BBC’s commercial arm. But there is, indeed, a more or less competitive market, even if one liberally oiled by the old-boy network, in private industry. The other is that they have to be kept at the BBC, and not tempted away to other jobs by higher pay elsewhere.The latter boils down to saying that throughout British industry, executives are paid vastly higher salaries than most of their employees. One is that they too make a big, if less obvious, contribution to the BBC.

The fact that established stars in showbiz earn vastly more than starstruck wannabes is not really controversial. Sure, there is a strong element of the haphazard in it, but winner-take-all pay is the norm in all branches of entertainment. Good luck to them – I only wish it were me.High pay for the suits is another matter, and it is worth dissecting the Corporation’s defence Essentially, there are two arguments. Anybody, including competing broadcasters, can look at the viewing figures for their programmes.

But, of course, there are better reasons for paying small fortunes to the famous faces. It is relatively easy to measure what they contribute to the BBC. Perhaps the explanation means instead that the top brass are comparing their earnings with what they have to pay their star on-screen performers. It has to pay enough to attract and keep top-rank executives. Their annual pay is typical for a group of comparable managers in broadcasting and big UK companies. Individuals have to be rewarded for their contribution to the BBC and for improvements in their performance. Oh, and lastly, their rewards take into account “salary policy within the rest of the BBC and the relationship that should exist between the remuneration of members of the Executive Committee and that of other employees.”Salary policy for the ranks was a pay rise of around 2 per cent, as it happens.