When SCD1 morphed from a concept into a programme it was worth £little to BBC in 2003. The last time I looked BBC Worldwide has sold the Strictly franchise to 41 countries raking in £millions.

The beef from pro dancers is that they contributed to Strictly success but did not share in the proceeds. If an employee does well, it makes sense to keep faith and pay a performance bonus -- like paying a good wife a share of the husband's success, not to say, if you do not like it there are applicants wanting to be Wife Number Two.

But haven't some of those same pro dancers gone out to countries that have bought the Strictly Come Dancing rights and been involved in the series there?

The market for books, newspaper articles, DVDs, calendars, personal appearances etc would be a fraction of what it is without their involvement in Strictly Come Dancing. A large proportion of the UK population can probably recognise many of the dancers on Strictly Come Dancing. The proportion who would recognise any other professional dancer is probably down around 1% if that.

The BBC need the dancers but the dancers also need the BBC (or at least Strictly Come Dancing).

I suppose the BBC could offer a big increase in their fee with in a return a percentage of their earnings derived because of their popularity through Strictly Come Dancing - or notoriety in the case of a couple of the male dancers

Yes I understand what you're saying, but for as long as the pro dancers are satisfied with their current salary, the BBC has no reason to be just and pay them an higher. And I'm sure the BBC is paying Bruce the minimum salary to keep him satisfied as well. His expectations are just higher than the pro dancers.

Take a law firm for example. For every hour of their employees' (the lawyers, not the support staff) time they charge the clients nearly 10 times what they actually pay their employees. Now they obviously make a lot of money from their employees. But they keep their employees satisfied with the bare minimum, and keep the rest of the money for themselves. And despite not getting all that the clients pay for them, the lawyers of the firm still get pretty lucrative salaries, so they have nothing to complain about.

(Sorry, this was a random example, but I have a lawyer friend who works for one of the big firms and she was telling me a few days ago how much her company charges their clients for every hour of her time.)

And besides, how much money does one need to live a comfortable life? If I were getting paid 35K for 4 months of work, and then I could charge £100 ph for private lessons for the rest of the year I wouldn't complain either. Most of these pros like me haven't come from wealthy backgrounds, so it's going to take a while for them to get used to this standard of living and want more money.

Maximum transparency? So, tell us all how much you earn

Absolutely true. The BBC in the mid-2000s created / revived two massive entertainment franchises (the other being Doctor Who), both of which are major moneyspinners for the corporation.


But they did "share in the proceeds" - they got a heightened profile, work on the tour, and (usually) vastly increased revenue from these things. DVDs, appearance fees, books, you name it.

It's highly unlikely that - for example - Vincent and Flavia would ever have been able to run the Midnight Tango tour without this profile boost.

back at you!

You wouldn't have any way of knowing if the figure I gave was true but all my colleagues, family members know how much I earn. The BBC has been forced to publish the salaries of many of its high earners because of public dis-satisfaction with how this organisation spends our money.

As sophisticated debating tactics go, that one is not.


Really?

Do you have any actual information to back up your singularly-uninformed comment?

Or are you simply parrotting the Daily Mail?

Personally, I'm quite happy with how the BBC spends our money.

And I suspect that for many of the pro-dancers, their colleagues and family members also know how much they earn. So, if that is actually what you mean by 'maximum transparency', then fair enough. Sorry, I had assumed that you meant somewhat wider.

This is the pivotal question of prices being set by market forces of supply and demand. Property and investment banking valuations were set by market forces. Thanks to that we are now where we are. USA, UK, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Italy, etc are effectively bankrupt, with the UK flogging her last aircraft carrier. Meanwhile Germany, Australia, China, South Africa, etc are doing fine thanks to not allowing aforesaid laissez-faire market forces run riot in the crazy years.

Individuals budget from month to month. Patriarchs and matriarchs would take a longer view to include the next generation. It is political leaders who need to admit that longterm bankruptcy of today came out of short-term market forces of yesterday.

Nine Strictly seasons on, dancers and non-dancers may like to review, how has Strictly contributed to dance life in the UK? Should there be enlightened policy intervention by management to encourage development one way rather than another way?

Dance survived WW2 bombs so it will survive the Recession. In the dark days then as now, there is need for the uplands of the spirit, an intangible quality not seen on the balance sheets of BBC bean counters.

Is £35,000 before tax a good living? I would say the arts is not like assembly line piecework. If an artist performs well, let the contribution be so valued, let incentive reward be given.

How to get there? A dancer instinctively thinks of partner, not of union and collective bargaining. Leadership will need to come from an enlightened management as it has always done in the arts, i.e. from patron not from shop steward.

The BBC only publish the salaries of their senior executives, I don't think they have ever published what "talent" in paid except in very general terms. It would be meaningless for them to do so anyway because there is nothing to compare with. If the BBC said person "A" got £200,000 then there would be outrage from some of the DTP even though are quite likely paying some celebrities far more than that for a ghost written column. Other commercial channels could be paying an equivalent celebrity £500,000 or £1 million but we don't know.

Transparency is fine if everyone does it.

I really don't think that a BBC light entertainment show can take on responsibility for directing the future of dance in the UK. And nor would I want it to. This is surely the role of the British Dance Council, or some such body.
As a matter of interest, the prize for winning the Latin or Ballroom Professional British Championship is of the order of £250 per couple. So any short term contracts to the BBC are likely to be pretty attractive.

And no-one's saying that it should.

But Strictly has had a significant impact on partner dance in the UK, simply because it's one of the biggest shows in the UK. In the same way - hopefully in a more positive way - that X-factor and Pop Idol have had significant impacts on music.

So it's a completely reasonable question to ask:

To take one obvious example, the profile of AT has been massively boosted in the popular mind by including it as a dance in the show. Yes, AT was on the rise anyhow, and would be a growing scene without Strictly, but there's no doubt that it got a big boost from the show.

It's then also a completely reasonable question to ask:


Admittedly, I think the answer is probably "No" - but that's because I think that the TV producers need to focus on the show, not on any social engineering work.

But it's not an unreasonable question.

It's a bbc show and licence payers money goes to pay their wages, so i have to disagree with you there.

I find this interesting, when some people think 35K is too low a wage for 4 months work, esp when they'll have perks from being on the show, such as a high profile which will help them into other work.
Rather than think this is too low a wage for a prime time show, maybe we should be looking at it the other way, that the high earners that make people think this is a low wage, are earning far too much.

So if I choose to buy something from the company that you work for, since I am paying your wage, I have a right to know what your salary is? Really?

ITV is entirely ratings and earnings oriented, so nothing beyond £££ is expected from their boardroom agendas. BBC is funded by a compulsory licence fee and constituted by a Royal Charter.

SCD1 was a light entertainment experiment, but SCD9 has become a national institution, presenting role models at prime time, showing both physical and spiritual facets of leisure time. Just as footie violence on the pitch overflows onto the terraces, Strictly invited into 10 million living rooms does influence the mood of the nation, while it also portrays an alternative exercise option to children becoming increasingly obese.

Far be it that a Mary Whitehouse committee should lay down rules for Strictly programmes. But far be it that one person Moira Ross should shut out the voice of one nation.

You really think that comparison is the same as the bbc being funded by license fee's?

I'm not, particularly when people like Alan Yentob insist on traveling first class by air at our expense, because he said "he's unable to work in any other class."

This "work" will be preparation for a five minute interview with someone in some far-flung place for one of his "Imagine" programmes I'd guess.

He could do any necessary "work" in his palatial office before he goes on a trip.

Still, look on the bright side, he's obviously not charging us for his suits.

Why not? I'm just applying your own stated logic.

Its my opinion, and i found out about bruces wage after i posted

It was hardly a `rant`

My bad.

I did mean something wider! This is an example of a system I would favour:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8319054.stm

However, I can understand why many people will be wary of such a system.

The only BBC 'salaries' we can't find out about are the stars' salaries. The BBC has a spiel for explaining why this is but I don't buy it.

As a public company everything about how the BBC spends our money should should be published. This will make it more accountable.

And therefore sacred, no doubt.

In that case, it's my opinion that your opinion seemed quite, well, opinionated.


Actually, it was - or that's how it read.

And let's have a look at the post again:

Yep.

Rant.

I hear they pay Ola in glitter, Brenda in bananas and Bruce in second-hand jokes.

James is paid vouchers to whinge.