POLL: Should BBC cut Gary Lineker's salary to save BBC Singers choir?

The BBC is proposing axing the BBC Singers choir to save the public broadcaster as part of plans to save money. The BBC Singers is thought to cost about £1.3million, which is slightly less than Gary Lineker annual salary of £1.35million. But should the BBC cut the Match of the Day presenter’s income to save the threatened choir? Vote in our poll.

Gary Lineker and BBC Symphony Orchestra

The BBC is making cuts to the budgets of the BBC Philharmonic, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Concert Orchestra by 20 percent to save the public broadcaster some £5million a year. However, the 21 members of the BBC Singers choir will be dropped entirely.

More than 200 amateur choirs have signed a letter opposing the casual “killing” of the choir. They have described the group as the country’s only full-time professional chamber choir as a “peak of excellence”.

The letter, written by Wimbledon Choral and signed by 228 other choirs comprising 18,290 members, published in The Times said: “It’s personal: they are part of the choir family. By killing off the UK’s leading professional choir, the BBC is diminishing us all.”

It continued: “The BBC Singers have a special and symbolic place in choral singers’ hearts, epitomised by when they sang at the Last Night of the Proms in 2020, when singing together was still banned for amateur choirs. They occupy a crucial position in the ecosystem of choir singing in the UK: not just a peak of excellence that we amateurs aspire to, but a group with which we have many close links.”

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Writing in an opinion piece for the Daily Mail, Stephen Glover said he was in favour of the BBC saving the Singers over Mr Lineker. He said: “Beeb executives lamentably fail to recognise these truths. They don’t understand the esteem in which the BBC Singers are held – and so demonstrate how out of touch they are with the country they are supposed to serve.”Link

Conductor and broadcaster, Julian Lloyd Webber, also criticised the proposals and treatment of musicians as “lamentable”. He wrote in the Radio Times: “What has happened to our nation’s beloved BBC – the organisation that has been responsible for some of the greatest classical music broadcasts in history? That BBC no longer exists.”

The campaign to save the BBC Singers has also been backed by MPs, with some calling for the Government to intervene and debate the broadcaster’s decision. Culture Minister Julia Lopez said the move was “causing a lot of alarm and concern” and that the BBC has “duties to deliver cultural good”.

A Government source said: “There are always choices to be made about what things to support and the Singers is not in the grand scheme of things a vast amount of money. But [it] is a really special part of what the BBC does and I think everyone would like to see them performing at the Proms.”

So what do YOU think? Should BBC cut Mr Lineker’s salary to save the threatened BBC Singers choir? Vote in our poll and leave your thoughts in the comment section below.

Gary Lineker and BBC Symphony Orchestra