losing its grip

企業役員の報酬公開は世界的な流れですが，それに応じてこれまで築き上げてきたものにも変化があらわれています。BBCも例外ではありません。どうも「おさえが効かなく」なっているようです。読むと勉強になる文です。全文は次のURLから。（UG）

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/7871792/Is-the-BBC-losing-its-grip.html
Is the BBC losing its grip?
With its stars being picked off by rival broadcasters and looming cuts to pay and pensions, the mood at the BBC is said to be 'sulphurous'. Neil Midgley looks at the tensions pulling it apart.
 By Neil Midgley
Published: 7:44AM BST 05 Jul 2010
Jeremy Hunt must focus on the size of the BBC Photo: Eddie Mulholland
Saturday July 17 will see the end of an era at the BBC – and one that the corporation will be glad to forget. Just before 1pm, Jonathan Ross will hang up his Radio 2 headphones for good – his three-year, £18 million deal finally at an end. Ross became a totem of almost everything the BBC's critics say is wrong with it: his massive pay packet, his foul-mouthed style and, fatally, his infamous harassment, with Russell Brand, of the actor Andrew Sachs on Brand's Radio 2 show. His exit should be the opportunity for a golden new dawn at Television Centre in White City: with the page turned and lessons learned, the BBC could and should be ready to show itself not only leaner and meaner, but with higher editorial standards and a greater commitment to the public service broadcasting ideals for which it was founded in the days of John Reith.
Yet when Sir Michael Lyons, the chairman of the BBC Trust, stood up to give an agenda-setting speech at the Voice of the Listener and Viewer consumer group last week, he did not give a confident performance. Though he gathered headlines in the following day's papers with his demand for the BBC's top-earning on-screen stars to be publicly listed, he had in fact dithered over the text of the speech almost until he delivered it. He even added a crucial caveat – that individual presenters' salaries need not be disclosed – while he was on his feet. Often stumbling over his words, he looked and sounded weary and unsure.
Today, Sir Michael will be on his feet again, next to director-general Mark Thompson at the presentation of the BBC's annual report. One Tory MP recently described the pair – with some frustration, given Sir Michael's role as regulator of Thompson's output – as being "like Romulus and Remus, they appear everywhere as a double act". But tensions between those who run the BBC, led by Thompson, and the supervisory Trust, led by Sir Michael, have never been higher. According to one senior source, the executive and the trust are now in "almost open warfare", with the trust's most recent demands about "talent pay" disclosure only hardening the resentment felt at Television Centre towards the trust. The source added that if Sir Michael had gone further and asked for presenters' actual salaries to be disclosed, the pair might have publicly fallen out there and then. Thompson has since ruled out publishing the salary details of the BBC's stars.
Pressure on BBC pay – both on screen and off – is not going to abate any time soon. But the market in which the BBC operates is changing, with a robust recovery in advertising revenues at both ITV and Channel 4. The BBC has had to show itself ready to walk away from expensive on-screen talent, driving Christine Bleakley and Adrian Chiles into ITV's more generous arms (Bleakley is said to have quadrupled her salary, from £350,000 to £1.5 million). Other highly paid presenters, such as Graham Norton, Chris Evans, Jeremy Paxman and Jeremy Clarkson, may soon see themselves on Sir Michael's list. BBC executives fear that the best of them will be picked off, one by one, by commercial competitors.