Why are right-wing outlets acting outraged at BBC salaries? It's not because of gender equality

If the BBC was to become a subscription service, as many right-wingers would like, it would be so much easier for media barons to add even more money to their vast fortunes. The best way to attack an organisation is to cherry-pick shocking stories and give them prominence, while downplaying anything good it does

There have been a lot of different reactions to the BBC figures released today: some of them worthy, and some of them not so much. “Chris Evans gets how much?!” “Alan Shearer’s not worth that!” “Why are the women getting paid so much less than the men?”

The latter point is definitely a good one, and one worth exploring in depth elsewhere. But there is also an important subtext that should not be overlooked: the Government’s decision to force the BBC to reveal how much it pays its top stars is an ideological attack on the world’s greatest broadcaster, and the fire is being fuelled by a right-wing media with a vested interest in its privatisation.

The main aim behind these figures is not to bring about reform of sexist pay rates at the BBC or to safeguard licence-fee payers’ money. It’s much more about trying to destroy one of the last great “nationalised” bodies in Britain.

Right-wing politicians like former Culture Secretary John Whittingdale – who proposed the idea of making the highest BBC salaries public – have long called for privatisation or the end of the licence fee, which could easily end up meaning the same thing.

They are the sort of people who think any deviation from market forces is a sin that simply cannot be tolerated. To them, the BBC is a festering remnant of Britain’s flirtation with “socialism” that somehow survived the 1980s.

This agenda is given extra force because of the changes to the media introduced by the internet age.

Once upon a time, the BBC broadcast news on television and newspapers published in print, and there was easily enough space in the market for both.

Now the BBC publishes stories and videos online and newspapers, including this one, do exactly the same thing. They are direct rivals.

Because the BBC is funded by the licence fee, it cannot charge for this news service. It has to be free. And that makes it difficult for commercial rivals to stick up a paywall.

The Sun was free for a while, then went behind a paywall and then returned to being free. The Times has a paywall and The Telegraph has a mix of free and “premium” content.

If the BBC was to become a subscription service, as many right-wingers would like, it would be so much easier for media barons to add even more money to their vast fortunes – or indeed fund quality journalism, whichever option they chose to take.

This alignment of ideology and vested interest is building into an existential threat for the BBC. The NHS has come under similar attacks from the right-wing press, solely on political grounds.

The best way to attack an organisation is to cherry-pick shocking stories and give them prominence, while downplaying anything good it does.

A senior news executive at a right-wing paper once explicitly told me they were interested in bad-news stories about the BBC. The stories had to be true, but that’s the agenda they wanted to promote.

The revelation that John Humphrys, one of the BBC’s most senior journalists, earns between £600,000 and £649,000 is designed to foster outrage in a country where public sector workers have been getting real-terms pay cuts for years because, in the Prime Minister’s words, there “no magic money tree”.

How dare a public service broadcaster funded out of our own pockets pay anyone such a large amount of money?

The fact that leading newspaper editors can earn more than a million or two a year doesn’t need to be mentioned. The market rate can be much higher than the BBC’s rates. Viewed in a different light, you could say the BBC journalists are choosing to earn less for the privilege of working there.

Justifying Chris Evans’ £2.2m to 2.5m is perhaps tougher, but, as the BBC director general Lord Hall said, he is presenting “the most popular show on the most popular radio network in Europe”.

In our austere times, attacking the highest rates of BBC pay will make it unpopular with the public because of the vast gulf between average pay rates, but it will also undermine the corporation’s ability to attract the sort of talent that makes it popular in the first place.

So why bother sticking up for the BBC?

It is one of the most trusted news services in the world, a source of impartial information for people living in countries with no access to a free press. Even in the US, the BBC was ranked among the most trusted media outlets, behind only The Wall Street Journal.

If people trust the BBC, they are likely to trust the country that created it. It is a diplomatic force of immense significance.

The corporation also provides some of the best drama on the planet. Globalisation is helping to spread this to other countries in yet another demonstration of the “soft power” that it provides for Britain. Hollywood has done much for the world’s impression of America; the BBC is doing a similar job for our image.

It also provides a sort of cultural hub in the UK itself. Think of the generations of people who have grown up watching the likes of Blue Peter, Doctor Who and Match of the Day.

Undermine the BBC and you diminish something that actually forms part of the fabric of UK society. It is the epitome of those “British values” that right-wingers tend to bang on about.

In fact, it does so much for this country and is so embedded in our lives that I almost regard those attacking the BBC as traitors. Thankfully, I was brought up watching the Beeb, a champion of free speech and reasoned debate, so I would never hold such an extreme position.