BBC gave 71 employees severance payoffs of over £100,000 last year
Seventy one senior members of the BBC received extravagant payoffs of over £100,000 last year despite the corporation announcing over 400 job cuts last week due to financial difficulties.
BBC viewers spend an average of 18.5 hours weekly
Overall, the BBC’s severance payments totalled £25.6m for 413 members of staff in the year following March 2013.
Twelve staff received over £150,000 before September 2013 when director-general Tony Hall capped pay below that figure.
Fifty-nine employees took between £100,000 and £150,000 - totalling £7.13m. and 342 had took home five-figure packages.
The annual BBC report, said: “The payments that were made before September 2013 reflect that some cases were in the pipeline before new policies came into effect."
This news comes as striking unions representing BBC employees vote on whether to accept a 2.7 per cent salary increase.
The total spent on staff payoffs dropped from £40.2m (793 staff) in 12/13 to £25.6m (413 staff) in 13/14.
A BBC spokesperson said:“The report clearly shows that severance payments have declined since Tony Hall introduced a cap on them in September 2013, but like any organisation when long standing members of staff are made redundant they are contractually entitled to payments.
"The cap means no longer can anyone receive more than £150,000 in severance.”
Staff numbers at the British broadcaster have increased from 16,534 to 16,672 as a result of a mass recruitment to cover the Glasgow Commonwealth Games and the Scottish independence referendum.
The BBC is funded by a monthly licence fee of £12.13 per household.
Meanwhile, the BBC's annual report detailed plans to expand its online offering through personalisation and data analysis, and said the proposed move of BBC3 from a broadcast channel to online service would "pioneer" the future of channels.