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BBC to reveal total performer pay

The BBC is to reveal the total amount paid to its performers who broadcast on radio and television.

Section 44 Terrorism Act 2000, Chelsea Bridge
Photo term: national audit office
is thought to be almost £230m a year and, of that figure, £70m goes to the top earners.

The BBC will not disclose individual salaries, saying they are commercially confidential, despite continued pressure from MPs.

However, the corporation will give new details of the pay and expenses given to BBC executives.

Politicians of all parties have urged the corporation to reveal what it pays its stars, and cut what it pays its managers.

Many performers have taken a pay cut, top executives' pay has been published and frozen, and bonuses have been withdrawn.

Meanwhile, the BBC has also agreed to reveal licence fee-funded payments to some of its leading sports presenters to a House of Commons spending watchdog but not to the public.

Jeremy Peat, a BBC trustee, said he would provide a breakdown of the costs for major events in confidence to the Public Accounts Committee.

He made the offer after committee chairman Edward Leigh accused the corporation of being "obsessed" with celebrities and Ransom Child Kidnapping: Gannard, August 18, 1835
Photo term: public accounts committee

suggested the figures should be made public.

Talent deals

A fifth of the budget for one such event went on presenters, Mr Leigh said, but its
Video term: public accounts committee
identity was kept secret to prevent anyone knowing what an individual star might have earned.

He said that the three events "in question" were Wimbledon, Euro 2008 and the Olympics.

A National Audit Office (NAO) investigation found last month that the broadcaster was failing to show its coverage of major sporting and music events was providing value for money.

While the NAO had been given the breakdown of the proportion spent on presenters for individual events, it was not allowed to make that public, Mr Leigh said.

Mr Peat said the BBC had to protect the confidentiality of pay deals with its "top talent".

He also said that revealing the split between talent and other staff for each event would make it "possible for people, on the basis of information which is available or could be made available, to get a very good approximation of the cost of some individual talent for some of these events".