BBC Hands New Newsnight Presenter £200,000

29th January 2014

I believe that the BBC should be hiring new graduates jobs at good starting salaries - it should be training up and hiring our young journalists because it is tax-payer funded, not hiring expensive "celebrities". If they become celebrities, so be it, let them flourish in one of the wealthiest organisations then let them move on to bigger things but don't waste our money on idiots.

Newsnight's new presenter has been offered a £200,000-a-year contract to lure her away from ITV, it has emerged.


Laura Kuenssberg, a BBC veteran who is currently the business editor at ITV, is set to become Newsnight's chief correspondent next month.


It was today reported that she would be earning a salary of £200,000 to appear on the programme, whose average audience has slipped in recent years to just 600,000 viewers.

Her hefty salary works out as 33p per viewer.

The deal, which is said to have angered other BBC staff, comes after the Corporation has been widely criticised for the high salaries paid to executives and on-screen stars.


And Newsnight has itself been embroiled in controversy after the show's editor was forced to quit in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.


The programme - which specialises in investigations and hard-hitting interviews - cancelled a programme exposing the former BBC star as a paedophile shortly after his death in 2011, and the next year it falsely accused Conservative peer Lord McAlpine of child abuse.


Editor Peter Rippon resigned and was replaced by Guardian journalist Ian Katz, who has hired Ms Kuenssberg and a number of other presenters in a bid to refresh the 34-year-old show and boost its viewing figures.


The new editor is thought to have brought a lighter touch to the programme with segments such as presenter Kirsty Wark dancing with 'zombies' on Halloween.

After the news of her £200,000 salary emerged, one BBC employee criticised the deal as 'completely over the top', telling The Sun: 'She's no big ticket name.'


Jeremy Paxman, Newsnight's most popular presenter, is paid around £800,000, while the BBC has refused to release details of Mr Katz's pay.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2547970/BBC-hands-new-presenter-Laura-Kuenssberg-200-000-year-deal-600-000-viewers-thats-33p-each.html#ixzz2rnWDpUZI

Like all lefty State institutions, money's no object - as long as the taxpayer's footing the bill.

Spot on Tess.

The BBC are nothing more than benefits recipients - just like the miners were.

Now, I wonder why they are usually rather supportive of Labour, benefits scroungers and immigrants...

£3.5 billion a year in compulsory licence fee to spend on Labour party Broadcast posing as newscast.

It is the thing that galls me most. This once great institution has been corrupted and no loner is fit for purpose.

The licence fee should be abolished and they should compete for funds like everyone else.

That way those who enjoy Laboour PPBs can pay for it.