Spending other people's money is easy.

Why does the BBC pay its executives so much?  It must be for their skill, talent and judgement.

A few years ago they were lambasted for giving an £18m contract to Jonathan Ross, and the public were told that this was a contract running over several years and it was for more than Mr Ross, but it was never clear what was actually bought with that money. Now we hear that they have paid £22 million for the format of a Saturday night singing contest with judges.  So that's £22 million over 2 years before they actually spend a penny on making the programme. Apparently the big idea behind this show is that the singers are behind a curtain.  Obviously this doesn't work on radio because you can't see the curatin on the radio.

Now I am not much of a TV producer, but I think I could have come up with the same concept for a lot less money.  Saturday night talent contest with judges?  I think I have seen something like that before.  Bearing mind that the TV License is in reality a tax paid into the Consolidated Fund (collected by the BBC as agent for the government and then disburse to the BBC and Channel 4 after DCMS takes a cut and the Treasury adds a large dollop of cash for licenses for the over-70's), then tax payers should expect more skill, talent and judgement from those on the government payroll.