Don't suppose the £6 /gallon £400+RFL will be worrying him at least in the short term!
No, I suppose not. But I can't blame him for cashing in on his celebrity. If the BBC markets the show worldwide through their commercial arm, someone was already cashing in and he is just getting a share of it. After all, it's his face on the screen, so why should someone else enrich themselves and not him?
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so why should someone else enrich themselves and not him?
The licence payers (who put him there in the first place) maybe ?
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so why should someone else enrich themselves and not him? The licence payers (who put him there in the first place) maybe ?
You are emotionally enriched by watching great BBC shows like Top Gear, PU.
As I understand it, the money he is to receive has to do with commercial distribution of the show overseas. I'm not sure that he is skimming money off of some BBC budget that would otherwise have gone into the production of yet more fine television programming.
Also, not sure why Clarkson cashing in is worse than any other celebrity doing the same. Name a celebrity who is objectively worth the sums of money that he or she can command. Start with the footballers.
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Just remeber that research shows that having greater material wealth does nothing to increase happiness. My own feeling is that carrying the responsibility for and managing all that money increases stress and can bring its own special kind of, if not misery, a sense of discontent.
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I'd rather Clarkson got it than that Jonathon Woss! There's a real waste of the licence fee!
Edited by Armitage Shanks {p} on 09/08/2008 at 09:01
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>> Just remeber that research shows that having greater material wealth does nothing to increase happiness.
Funny that so many people would rather be rich than poor!
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I'm not against people making money, but the BBC has duties over & above those of a commercial organisation. For example, the BBC has statutory, historical & social obligations to provide many other non-profit making services - any 'profit' made on programmes should be & is (in the main) spent on those services that can't make a profit - cross subsidy if you will. The handy term for the above is public service remit.
The notion that an overwhelmingly publicly funded company can make a profit is an oxymoron. Without the vast sums paid in TV licence fees the vast edifice (and indeed even the notion ) of the 'BBC' would not exist. To make a 'profit' those fees (let's call them 'shares' for the sake of argument) would need to be tradeable & attract a dividend or share of profit - like ITV.
So, how can any person (JC in this instance) 'profit share'? There is no profit, just a smaller loss. The licence fee is effectively written-off each year, and we start again with another 'equity call' (i.e. licence fee).
Yes, pay a commensurate & competitive salary, but given recent stories of other presenter fees being reduced & re-negotiated downwards, that's a hot area for debate in itself.
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"Name a celebrity who is objectively worth the sums of money that he or she can command"
None. Alistair Cooke was the last I fear, with the possible exception of Bryn Terfel, who I heard being interviewed on the Today programme the other morning. He seems to be able to share his talent around (especially in his native Wales) in a peculiarly unique fashion - there is tale that he appeared in a fund raiser for his local primary school for nothing (along with lesser known Welsh stars) - that's the sort of "celebrity" I admire. I don't know of any footballers to judge their value.
I am a lover of the BBC - a world class and unique institution and worth every last penny of my annual subscription to it, without BBC radio and its superb Internet content my life would be very different.
Having been the victim of US television for nearly three weeks - one can see how risky it would be to follow their model - PBS was the dying glimmer of hope in their offerings.
Edited by Pugugly on 09/08/2008 at 10:46
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Name a celebrity who is objectively worth the sums of money that he or she can command
But how do you measure that? If someone regularly entertains 5 million people over the course of a year, could you say that's worth £1 from each person and therefore they are entitled to £5m, in a sort of busking analogy?
(Ok, I know that doesn't take into account the behind-the-scenes people who contribute to the entertainment, but you could argue that programmes like Top Gear probably wouldn't do very well without someone like JC at the helm.)
F
Edited by Focus {P} on 09/08/2008 at 11:20
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Envy is something to be avoided.
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If some are entertained by him, and he's canny enough to get himself in on the sales worldwide of TG, then good luck to him.
I'm trying to think of a presenter/celebrity (i try not to as i detest the species) who hasn't got their nose deep in the trough.
As for money not making anyone happy, its a hell of a lot better way of being miserable.
And as for the State Broadcaster, never watch it, far too much propaganda.
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At least it's more open than that of so many of our political representatives.....
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Stuart
I've sent you an e-mail from a Backroomer - seems there's an e-mail problem at HJ's place so it may take a while.
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Aslong as its legally earned, I never mind what anyone earns.
Clarkson is a british export and he has done what the vast majority of people would do when considering what they get paid - asked for as much as possible with the most lucrative benefits - he still gets paid far less than some other people who dont appear to work too hard for their wages.
As for Wossy, I salute him for making many of his composed guests squirm, he is worth his pay just for that.
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Sad to see that many here can only think in terms of the headline when the underlying principle is what's really the heart of the matter.
Okay, if an 'I'm not envious, aren't I good' or 'I don't think he's worth it, I'm a bit bitter' is the level of debate - then I can't be bothered quite frankly.
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Mrs P is distantly related to a "celebrity" - for all the tea in China I wouldn't change lives with her. She's worked very hard to get where she is and deserves the money she is now making but do I envy her ???
No.
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The point of having 'guests' - if that is what they really are is to make them feel at ease and amuse us with whatever they have to tell us about life. Woss doesn't do this plus he isn't as talented or amusing as Dame Edna Everage or Rod Hull. At least with them you know you were in for a hard time, as a guest. Woss is not talented and thinks that he is more important and interesting than his guests - which he isn't!
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His comment about being "more important" than a 1000 BBC journos summed it for me, the only programme I have watched (or listened to) was that Dad's Army celebration last week - the man looked a right fool in it and spoilt what could have been a very entertaining programme.
Somebody once mentioned that he started his career as a model in knitting pattern pamphlets.....
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Clarkson and Andy Willman, the producer of TG came up with the idea of the new TG format and convinced the BBC to make and reintroduce it back in 2002. As part of the deal Clarkson and Willman retained certain commercial rights to the programme so in effect Clakson and Willman own a prortion of the show. Their share of the profits comes from the ever increasing overseas sales of the programme, DVD sales and franchise rights.......and of course the endless repeats on "Dave"!! NOT from the license payers pocket. The fact Clarkson "owns" a share of the programme is also the reason he is payed far more than Hammond and May for presenting it, they actually work for him! TG is one of the BBCs most succesful programmes and you can bet the BBC earns far more from it than JC does.
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According to this morning's DT (and so it must be right) the company that BBC has bought into was only set up by Clarkson and Willman in 2006.
Doing it this way just sounds to me like a way of getting huge sums of money into Clarkson's pocket without offending the poor, benighted licence payer too much. I've certainly been taken in by it.
I've no objection to people having a lot of money, but there's a point at which a lot turns into something obscene and bears no relation to the talent or industry of the recipient.
Jonathon Ross? £18m for a bit of smutty innuendo? You have to be kidding. Someone said something about US TV but if you look at and listen to what their Public Broadcasting System provides, you may be very favourably impressed. And some of BBC TV drama probably wouldn't get made at all without money from WGBH in Boston.
If money cames in from Top Gear it should be used for the improvement of Britain's public broadcasting service and not to line Clarkson's pocket.
Edited by Optimist on 09/08/2008 at 12:56
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Top Gear is just about the only programme worth watching on TV at the minute, Funny and non PC. In a world of reality tv its refreshing. Let him have a share in the profits they deserve them . Top gear is value for money ,if he packed up and left we would be left with heartbeat or something similar on a sunday evening !
Edited by Webmaster on 09/08/2008 at 13:24
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no objection to people having a lot of money, but there's a point at which a lot turns into something obscene
Try to define the point.
Most people would probably think the top 10% earners in the UK earn obscene amounts of money, until you point out that the cut-off point for that level is about £40,000!
Polly Toynbee, the Guardianista who owns a villa in Tuscany and whose children are/were educated privately, had a go last week in her column, and was soon torn to shreds. [She is not short of a bob or two, but it is always the people who earn undefined "obscene" amounts who seem undeserving].
To quote her:
" How much, ... would it take to put someone in the top 10% of earners? ... .. In fact, in 2007 it was around £39,825, the point at which the top tax band began. Our group found it hard to believe that nine-tenths of the UK's 32m taxpayers earned less than that .."
Well done to Clarkson. He is not the problem, the problem is the BBC. BBC have sent a huge contingent to China, bigger than our Olympics team.
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The BBC has always made money by shipping quality television around the world. One of the buyers was (probably still is) PBS in America -- even programmes that don't have the WGBH-Boston input. The license fee would be many times higher than it is if the BBC did not have other sources of income. As it is, the license fee is a bargain. I have also had US television inflicted on me recently. With counseling, I may make a full recovery.
If the license fee payer is supposed to be the main beneficiary of any profit the BBC makes, can I walk into my local HMV, pick up a few DVDs of Beeb shows and claim that they are mine? Okay, I'll pay the full economic cost of producing each DVD, but nothing more that would turn someone a profit. Seems fair: I already paid for those shows. Point is that the Beeb is always buying shows from production companies and Clarkson produces a show that the BBC wants to run. ITV or Channels 4 or 5 would snap up TG if it became available.
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When concerns are raised at the truly disproportionate salaries that some people are paid the cry of 'envy' goes up. If, on the other hand, people doing essential jobs on much lower salaries ask for more money they are 'greedy' (think of the recent hiatus over the striking tanker drivers). I noted one of our daily papers recently describing council care home workers as 'greedy' because they were asking for more money - even though 50% of them were on less than £6.50/hour! So the less well paid display, at the same time, the vices of greed and envy. I'd love to see a Daily Mail journalist getting up each morning to do that job for that sort of money!
I don't know what proportion of license payers are Clarkson fans, but I bet its a minority. Ditto Ross, Wogan and that vulgar creep Graham Norton. They all seem to belong to a big 'club' dedicated to hiking each others salaries (on account of their talents being supposedly very rare and valuable). I would like to see Clarkson off the screen and some other talent given a chance. Top Gear is now becoming a parody of itself and past its sell-by date.
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Good luck to him. He and his producer have developed a product that sells well worldwide. To those with green eyes, would you not do the best for yourself and your family?
The vast majority of the money seems to be coming from exports of the show and merchandising sold by BBC Worldwide, a separate organisation.
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BBC Worldwide is a separate organisation? Really? How's that? Calling it a slightly different name doesn't alter where the programme is actually generated in the first place.
Whenever these megabucks deals are mentioned, there's always a suggestion the "talent" will go elsewhere. OK. Let them go. You and I will still be be able to watch Jeremy on some other channel so we won't be worse off and it's not as easy as it sounds anyway. I'd imagine the Top Gear brand and format is BBC owned so he'd only be taking himself and that doesn't always work. We can all probably think of big names who shifted channels and came to grief.
£40k a year isn't obscene, jbif. Millions is. I do the best I can for my family, but I'm not naive enough to think that the opportunity to make a fortune talking about motors is open to all of us and I don't think it's right for the BBC to pay that much.
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£40k a year isn't obscene, jbif. Millions is
Go on, draw a line. £1m, £2m, £3m, ..... where? And why the cut-off there?
This "obscene" amounts argument is always trotted out by people who do not have a clue about how free market economies differ from communism.
A basic understanding can be gleaned by reading "Animal Farm".
And by the way, £40k a year is huge from a world poverty point of view.
Edited by jbif on 09/08/2008 at 16:06
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I don't like Clarkson and I don't like Top Gear, but he owns the format and that is what is earming him the money. Just like the French guy who invented Countdown and the (Dutch?) company behind Big Brother. When the format and name is copied they get loads of dosh. Plus dosh from repeat fees and syndication. Apparantly in the US, 100 episodes is the key number for a programme to go into mass syndication - when Friends reached 100 episodes the producers bought the cast a Porche 911 each.
What is a shame is that there is so little original programming these days. Why the need to copy Top Gear? Think of your own car show format. Bring back the Used Car Roadshow with that big bloke and his more knowledgable woman side-kick!
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Well done to Clarkson. He is not the problem the problem is the BBC. BBC have sent a huge contingent to China bigger than our Olympics team.
I agree. The BBC should not be paying him that much (or at least not agreed to the deal allowing him to set up a separate company, he was after all their employee and no doubt had an exclusivity clause).
The 'huge contingent' sent to China are only going to be there a few weeks. And given that the average BBC reporter is paid 1/1000 th of what Jonathan Ross is paid it sounds like quite a bargain!
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This debate will be moved to the Top Gear thread once my motivation reaches a critical mass.
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I don't want to nit-pick, Pug, but since you corrected my use of "rooves" yesterday I have to point out that it's utterly impossible for motivation to achieve critical mass.
Cheers!
Edited by Optimist on 09/08/2008 at 15:59
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You've not been living in my head for the last few months :-(
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the average BBC reporter is paid 1/1000 th of what Jonathan Ross is paid
www.independent.co.uk/news/media/ross-claims-he-is...l
".. Jonathan Ross stood up at an annual comedy awards ceremony and quipped, "I'm worth 1,000 BBC journalists", .."
Jonathan Ross's salary is 18m over three years or 6m annually. Per annum, one Jonathan Ross equals:
* 200 broadcast journalists from London (at basic average salary 30,000).
* 400 regional broadcast journalists (at basic average salary 15,000).
* 315.8 library clerks/assistants (at grade three, basic salary 19,000).
* 227.7 producers and directors (at grade five, basic salary 26,353).
* 181.3 graphic designers (at grade nine, basic salary 33,094).
Edited by jbif on 09/08/2008 at 15:57
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