£100 million a year bill for BBC pensions

[RebelSouls]

What is so special about BBC workers other people have to accept smaller pensions or pay more in.

http://www.telegraph....pensions-deficit.html

[sara3]

oh, RebelSouls.. do get some counselling!

[jno]

since you ask (though I don't imagine for a moment you want an answer), journalists can get far better pay in other media outlets; they trade off low pay for high pensions (a pension is basically deferrred pay, and they take a risk on it because they don't know how long they'll live).

If the BBC had to pay the market wage, people would only protest about paying licence fees.

[joko]

imagine what he'd be like if someone actually did do something wrong to him...!

[BertiWooster]

jno - I dont buy that .

If these journalists can get better pay elsewhere , my guess is that they would be on their bikes , if they could just walk into a comparable job at another broadcaster .

Most of them cant do that - they know which way their bread is buttered .

[daffy654]

I knew who had posted this Q just by seeing the title of it in the 'Latest Posts' box :-/

[BertiWooster]

........which way their bread is buttered . ?

Which side their bread is buttered

[jno]

not necessarily another broadcaster, Berti (I think pay on commercial TV is even lower) but on Fleet Street, as it used to be known. I know a few BBC people and mostly they just like it there, and are prepared to accept lower pay - but with the hope of a decent pension at the end. (In fact their pensions are still less than they'd get in newspapers.)

Whether they *could* do so can only be guessed at, but I think people like Peston, for instance, would be grabbed by newspapers if he indicated he wanted to leave broadcasting. Less glamorous middle-level news people, as far as I can tell, are as good as their counterparts on newspapers, though obviously there are differences between addressing a microphone and typing on a screen.

[Gromit]

The Beeb are probably copying the Royal Mail by building up such a large pensions black hole, it becomes impossible to privatise.

[McMouse]

As usual a headline is taken out of context. It is the BBC staff pension fund that has been underfunded for a number of years.........BBC staff are the victims of bad financial management by the pension fund trustees.