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Reviews, reports and research.

The BBC Trust will regularly commission wide ranging reviews, reports and research. These will be published in this section.

Review of talent costs

2 June 2008

The BBC Trust commissioned an independent review, conducted by Oliver and Ohlbaum Associates Ltd (O&O), in November 2007 to provide an in-depth examination of the BBC's use of on-air and on-screen talent. This followed press reports about presenters' salaries during the course of 2006 which aroused industry and public concern and led some people to question the BBC's approach to the talent it employs. This debate was still live when the Trust was established as the BBC's governing body in January 2007. It was, and has remained, a topic raised by the public with Trustees during our appearances on radio phone-ins and at public meetings in all parts of the UK.

The Trust posed O&O three specific questions:

  1. How do the size and structure of the BBC's reward packages for talent compare with the rest of the market?
  2. What has been the impact of the BBC's policy on the talent market, particularly in relation to cost inflation?
  3. To what extent do the BBC's policy and processes in relation to investment in, and reward of, talent support value for money?

We are publishing O&O's report which seeks to answer these questions, the BBC management's response to the points it raises and our own judgements informed by this evidence.

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