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Some old background on how we got to BBC stars 'volunteering' to take pay cuts.

When I joined BBC News in 1973, it didn't take long to realise there were four classes of staff - network TV, where faux dynamism and braggodocio won top salaries; network radio, with pipes and cardigans in the newsrooms and Fleet Street escapees trying their hands as reporters; external broadcasting, marooned at Bush, with even lower pay, but lifestyle-protection schemes embedded in  local deals; and regional newsrooms, doing all things light and local.

John Birt arrived in 1987 to run News. He decided that we needed a huge new raft of correspondents, instead of doshing up Fleet Street hacks and academics day-by-day for analysis; we needed 'Editors' in various 'specialities', and we would have a bi-media future, with a central team of 'newsgathering' serving both tv and radio. Peter Jay, Polly Toynbee, Robin Oakley and Daniel Jeffreys came in from the papers (though Polly still believes she got a poor pay deal).  Reporters and correspondents were supported by dedicated producers and go-fers; pay and status inflation was launched in style.

In 1993, John Birt moved up to DG, but within weeks, his sense of entitlement was revealed - he was being paid via a service company, and had been claiming expenses from that company of up to £160k a year. This minor set back did not prevent him from bringing forward a 1994 paper, Managing The Future, which was set to move the whole BBC to 'performance-related pay' within two years.

There were strikes: Charles Wheeler wrote to The Guardian:'The trouble with performance-related pay is that it tends to reward obedience, discourage non-conformism, and to put too much power into the hands of middle managers.'  It was implemented in 1998, with the BBC claiming that 1% of the total pay bill had been set aside for bonuses, increments etc.

Over the years that followed, the-so-called roof of various grades became advisory. Big foreign correspondents in the big capitals expected to bank their salaries, and live in provided accommodation on generous daily rates, with support for their kids' education at home or abroad; they rotated every two or three years, ever upwards, and then were rewarded with a presentation gig on their return to the UK. "Discretionary salary elements" were followed by nudging some presenters into Birt-style service companies (still publicly denied by the BBC). Some stars were signed on long contracts before detailed agreements on the programmes they would host.

Add to this heady mix a perceived competition for talent with ITV, fuelled by Bruce Forsyth's two spells with ITV (1980-87 and 1994-2003), and entitled executives spent many hours in meetings decided how much to give stars to ensure their 'loyalty'. Terry Wogan returned to Radio 2 from his BBC1 chat show with the roughly the same salary, dragging the whole network's talent bill ever upwards.

Current DG Tony Hall left the BBC in 2001; his last year's salary as Director of News was £286k, including a bonus of £44k, benefits of £38k; he was given a pension enhancement of £24k. He could be adding a pension of £150k to his current package - we don't know.

Regular executive bonuses only stopped in 2009. In 2011, Mark Byford left with a huge pension and an extra payment for his last days 'to ensure his loyalty'.

Horror-movie fan John Whittingdale, with a cute team of advisors, successfully planted the £150k disclosure level in the new BBC Charter and is presumably pleased with subsequent catatstrophic injuries. The big strategic move of the last year, taking BBC Studios in the commercial world, is partially designed to keep big deals for producers, directors, and performers out of public scrutiny. Yet MPs and the HMRC - and the new Culture Secretary - generally, are hugely enjoying putting the hair shirt back on Auntie, with News UK and The Daily Mail as their handmaids.

It's hard to work out where this all stops.