Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Gordon in the morning: TV company pay for overnight accommodation shocker

Here's a surprise. It appears The Sun's TV editor Colin Robertson doesn't realise that TV productions pay people's accommodation costs if working on them takes them away from home. Otherwise, why would he think this is a story:

THE BBC is shelling out nearly £15,000 in licence fee cash to put up The Voice star Sir Tom Jones in London’s posh Savoy Hotel.
That's London's posh Savoy Hotel, just so you don't confuse it with the Savoy Hotels in London that aren't posh.

I suppose you could argue that Tom could have been put up in a Premier - after all, if it's good enough for Lenny Henry and all...

But even more surprising is Colin admits his opening sentence is a lie further down the article:
The show’s production company Wall To Wall is said to be handling the payments using the £11million budget handed to it by the BBC.
Ah. So, the BBC isn't actually spending anything on Tom's hotel; it's coming from Wall To Wall's margins and even if Tom slept in the street, it wouldn't make any difference at all to the sum the Corporation is paying (sorry, "handing over") for the series.

[Quick hint to Colin, by the way: Prince Alwaleed bin Talal owns the Savoy. He also owns a fairly big chunk of your newspaper's parent company.]


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