BBC executives still paid too much, says Lord Patten

Lord Patten, the new BBC Trust chairman, has admitted some of the BBC's executives are still paid too highly and not being able to pay top dollar for talent is something the corporation "has to live with" in return for not having to "flog advertising and subscriptions".

Speaking on Radio 4's Today programme, Patten said the corporation was working through a series of cuts that would scale back the number of senior executives by about a quarter. "In some circumstances, yes [pay is too high]," he said.

He also said that some talent was paid too highly but admitted that it would "probably be inflationary" to look to publish stars' pay bands, as has been done with executive pay.

"You don't have to pay 50% more on an individual than you do on the [BBC] Proms, to put it bluntly," he said.

He added that in such a hotly contested, talent-driven market, "talent drain" is "something you live with" that needs to be balances against the fact the licence-fee-funded BBC doesn't have to "flog ads and subscriptions up and down the street".

Patten said an important part of the BBC's raison d'etre is to "discover, train and employ [talent] for a few seasons". And if then they are "snapped up by competitors [the BBC] shouldn't feel to bad about that".

He refused to categorically rule out certain BBC services being reduced as the BBC deals with a budget cutback of about 16%. "I hope it can make these choices without hitting services," he said. "I hope we can avoid cutting services but we can't avoid making tough choices."

He said he wished that the BBC wasn't taking over the World Service – from 2014 – "with substantial cuts in the system", but he felt that it was "safer in the hands of the BBC than the Foreign Office, frankly".

He said it was important the BBC Trust, which governs the corporation, be "part of the public realm of this country, not the political".

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