The BBC

:D

always going to be difficult to defend a claim that Jeremy Vine was doing better work than you

yeah that was great.

Very odd ramifications for the industry

Loved how Jane Garvey said something along the lines of ‘700k? It takes some men a whole year to make that sort of money at the BBC!’

I'll confess to feeling conflicted. on the one hand yes, equal pay for equal work. on the other hand there's a showbiz aspect to it. different talent can negotiate different fees depending on their fame and bankability. Something like an organisation-wide comparison of pay across different pay bands feels more sensible. so that you can see it's not just men who are able to command the big salaries. I could be disabused of this idea though. in fact i'd like to!

poorly phrased but i mean i'd like to feel like this is unambiguously the right decision. because i am happy for samira and it's delicious to see vine's massive salary questioned.

Yeah part of it is that people will tune in to watch <someone they've heard of/have liked before> doing something where they wouldn't watch <someone they haven't heard of/doesn't "connect"> do exactly the same thing. The disparities in this case were egregious and indefensible though.

there's so much subjectivity in the idea of star power or what makes somebody a draw. at the very least the BBC is going to have to address this in terms of dealing with employees more transparently and finding a rationale for their pay structure that's more convincing than the defence they've offered in this case

i think it’s saying unequivocally “you absolutely cannot do this” which is only a positive thing for salary levels for women and non white people.

what NV said.

Reading the judgement, it's more that while they would have accepted using Vine's "star power" as a justification for the difference, the BBC failed to show that it had taken that into account at the time, as it provided no proof that was case. All the other evidence it provided of his fame was dated after the time of the salary negotiation and was dismissed.

So it may not have set the precedent I thought it would, and will only mean more paperwork in future.

it's interesting that the institutional working of this subjectivity seems to have favoured white men for some reason

thanks folx i expected it would be more nuanced than that. serves me right for not reading up properly i.e. more than the actual article about it on the BBC and the guardian coverage! useless

i think a lot of restorative or positive discrimination judgments tend to mean “more paperwork” tbh. they tend to involve new types of administration and g owrnance to ensure unfamiliar ways of working are enforced.

*governance

Both of these programmes are ‘letters to the editor’ public service remit things so I’d imagine the fees for doing them would be on the low end, regardless of presenter, but never in my life would I have thought a female presenter of the standing to audition to host bbcqt would be on 1/6 the fee of a male colleague presenting this. Or that her fee would be under a grand for 30 minutes of Tx.

Her fee was equivalent to the male predecessor of the same programme though

lol all of these people are paid way too much

maybe the long term result of this is that it will equalise at a lower level

> Her fee was equivalent to the male predecessor of the same programme though

true. I didn't recognise his name though, whereas I know (and like) Samira from Front Row (although that's quite a recent thing tbf).

the 6x thing is the bit that sticks in my mind. and the way that people are mostly seeing this as a gender thing when there's a race thing in there too.

I don't think that the BBC, in future, is going to have enough money to keep paying these salaries, to anyone.

Maybe Koogs is right: the whole top pay scale needs to come way down, and, of course, be equal.

How do BBC salaries compare to Sky, ITV etc?

Considerably less pretty much across the board, I guess depending on how you allow for celebrity status etc (Eg “presenter of a football show” might earn more on the BBC than one does on ITV)

https://theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/21/bbc-defended-opponents-free-market-evangelists-institution

Another winner from someone earning a crust for nothing. The overall point is lost in shite like this:

Like every organisation on the planet, it employs humans who make mistakes, some serious.

Free market evangelists are closing in on the corporation.

THAT'S COS YOU INVITE THEM ON EVERY NEWS BROADCAST

Lol yeah. I am sure the flat earthers must be days away from a QT invitation?

I had a long post on this which zing has helpfully deleted but the gist was tl;dr, if I saw <redacted> on fire in the street, I’d piss myself, and then I’d look for some petrol. The damage current affairs and news has done to the Overton window and political life in this country is immeasurable.

LOL OK

We'll introduce you to a #tradwife, a young woman who has chosen to be a traditional wife, staying at home to take care of the household chores while her husband works, and she is fine with submitting to her husband as he makes the key decisions in their lives. pic.twitter.com/4kbviYulcD

— BBC Talkback (@BBCTalkback) January 21, 2020

Likely a religious fundamentalist.

It’s a fash thing actually

Reminds me of this:

https://www.salon.com/2017/12/04/alt-right-women-are-upset-that-alt-right-men-are-treating-them-terribly/

I saw that tradwife thing the other day and couldn't decide which thread it should adorn. Doesn't feel that far removed in the UK from 40s-50s fetishists in general.

fuck sake

I genuinely cannot believe that the actual BBC News at 10 just did this pic.twitter.com/n6csMV9OOG

— Matthew Champion (@matthewchampion) January 26, 2020

seeing as basketball is almost non-existent in this country I might have had some "honest mistake" sympathy for them. But as it is the BBC I say don't you ever fact-check before broadcasting you blundering incompetent dickheads!

I got messaged by an embarrassed bbc producer (regarding The Science of Evil program on R4 which was pretty good tbf) on saturday night after pointing out that Kubrick didn't direct 12 Angry Men, it was Lumet ffs!

basketball might be nonexistent in this country but i feel like footage of a player who clearly has 'JAMES' written in big letters on his back might be a clue that perhaps it's not actually kobe bryant

yeah that is inexcusable incompetence tbf.

James 'Kobe' Bryant. I'm quite surprised by the level of coverage this story is being given on the BBC and elsewhere tbh, he might be a celebrity in the US but he's far from being a houshold name over here.

This is inexcusable, but ^^ yeah, same here. It's what I hate most of the US-focused media: noone knows nor cares about basketball here, nor the super bowl or nonsense like that. And yet we have to hear about it every time.

Same in France and Romania; getting massive coverage nonetheless.

lads this isnt steve guppy its cristiano ronaldo tbf

Down to the… allegations.

(Too soon?)

Guppy had one cap, that's nothing to sneeze at xp

xp (right on time imo)

Typical Romanian headline: 'Donald Trump's harrowing message, immediately after Kobe Bryant's death was confirmed'.

Since Sky started buying up all the sports people are interested in, the BBC is reduced to buying NFL highlights and then sticking them on straight after Match of the Day. Worse, they've hired Mark Chapman and two guffawing fratboys to present them in a sub-Top Gear blokey knee/back slapping manner.

Basketball is popular here in France; we just had an NBA game here on Friday. It is getting massive coverage, that's true.

Ime it's not unpopular per se but it's not especially popular either.

in media coverage it's as popular as biathlon, no small feat!

I mean, I talk basketball with a lot of French people and see a lot of jerseys out, but I live in the nord-est de Paris. it's not academic types who are into it.

Crown green bowling gets more coverage in the UK. Quite right too!

Litmus test for me: there's no coverage of the nba, of the actual sportsing I mean, in the Netherlands. Not in the main media, anyways. Yet this is on all the front pages and then some.

I think I'll stick to basketball.

xp