Tony Hall, with no arts management experience, brought stability to the Royal Opera House with good intuition and business knowledge.
When Tony Hall entered Covent Garden in April 2001, he was paid twice as much as the previous chief executiveçand that was still some way short of his BBC package of £240,000 plus pension, or so I was assured by his chairman at the time.
The pay gap was illuminating for, while the arts demanded sacrifice and offered a modest wage, the BBC in the age of John Birt — to whom Hall was a loyal lieutenant as head of news — preached market values and pegged the pay of its executives to the going rate in commercial media. That profound betrayal of its public service ethos lies now at the heart of many of the troubles that are dispatching Tony Hall — ennobled as Lord Hall of Birkenhead — back to the BBC as a last-ditch saviour.
When Tony Hall entered Covent Garden in April 2001, he was paid twice as much as the previous chief executiveçand that was still some way short of his BBC package of £240,000 plus pension, or so I was assured by his chairman at the time.
The pay gap was illuminating for, while the arts demanded sacrifice and offered a modest wage, the BBC in the age of John Birt — to whom Hall was a loyal lieutenant as head of news — preached market values and pegged the pay of its executives to the going rate in commercial media. That profound betrayal of its public service ethos lies now at the heart of many of the troubles that are dispatching Tony Hall — ennobled as Lord Hall of Birkenhead — back to the BBC as a last-ditch saviour.
Read more