Top BBC earners may face salary cut

Admitting to paying its 100 most senior staff 20 million pounds a year has landed the British Broadcasting Corporation in a soup.

Figures released by the corporation disclosed the top 100 are paid an average of 199,316 pounds, comfortably exceeding the Prime Minister's 194,250 pound salary. BBC Director General  Mark Thompson alone receives an overall pay package of 834,000 pounds a year, The Telegraph reports.

With bonuses and other entitlements, the executives' average package is more than 214,000 pounds a year - almost 10 times the average British salary, which certainly is not good news to hear in times of global recession.

The BBC released the figures in a bid to try to live up to the demand that public bodies should be more transparent and open. But the move backfired as the Tories said the revelations over the salaries and expenses were 'insulting' to the public. The Liberal Democrats said licence-fee payers would be 'gobsmacked'.

Opposition parties are now demanding a detailed breakdown of the expense claims, after the most sensitive information - including identities of top 'talent' treated to expensive meals - was covered up.

According to the paper, the BBC is now being forced to cut the senior management pay bill by a quarter over the next three and a half years.