The Stage

Performance-related pay

Published Monday 14 June 2010 at 16:52

Well, according to The Stage, BSkyB buys Virgin Media Television for £160 million (The Stage Online, June 4).

So Virgin Media has decided to exit from TV production over its lacklustre performance. Is it really a surprise move? I think not.

There was no real, innovative TV production going on at Virgin. It was obvious from what it was churning out that it would win no prizes.

Now that ITV is moving away from drama production, what can the viewer expect? Football is the only winner at ITV - more money to grossly overpaid footballers out on a beer binge.

Over at the BBC, we have a bloated public organisation that thinks it can do anything, with impunity. It too thinks it has no public obligation to provide good drama. Reality TV is the byword here. The BBC states it has to reduce fees to performers, yet it still vastly overspends on anything and everything. Anyone who thinks that Mark Thompson is the man to tackle overspending needs to look much deeper.

There are always talkers, but very little doers in the hierarchy at the BBC, sadly. It is now such a huge organisation, it has lost its way. I cannot see how such a large organisation can ever return to its grass roots. Nothing I have seen of late has changed my attitude. Yet the BBC calls for support from Equity members. It does not earn that support, so why should we give it?

If you throw enough money at something, then of course there is bound to be some success. But if that amount of money was put into another TV and radio channel, would we get a better result?

The jury is out on this conundrum.

Clive Hurst

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