As part of its efforts to counter the bite of the economic downturn, the BBC is suspending bonuses and reviewing the pay scales of its executives. It is also set to reduce the amount it spends on talent.

The BBC is making the cuts in reaction to its dominant role during the recession compared with its struggling competitors, as well as to its own financial challenges, Michael Lyons, the head of the BBC Trust, said.

“There has been considerable disquiet in recent weeks about the salaries of top BBC staff,” Lyons said.

The BBC announced this week that Worldwide revenues are in excess of 1 billion pounds, but that profits before interest, tax and exceptional charges were down to 86 million pounds from 118 million the previous year.

Now that savings have been made, where should that money be spent? The BBC says it needs to pay decent salaries to attract best talent, but do you agree? Should the licence fee be lowered?

Public critisicm may be heating up against banking executives being rewarded with huge bonuses despite taking too much risk (especially ex Merill Lynch head John Thain who requested a bonus and spent $1,405 on a garbage pail during a $1.22 million renovation of his office).

However, there are smaller fish who are being rewarded after doing something similar -- taking too much risk and choosing the wrong bank in which to put their deposit. We're talking about those who deposited in the collapsed Icelandic bank Landsbanki.

Around 300,000 British savers had accounts worth some 4 billion pounds in Landsbanki's online savings provider Icesave, which offered competitive interest rates of up to 7-plus percent.

Britain has promised domestic Icesave savers would get all their money back via Britain's Financial Services Compensation Scheme, a statutory body that acts as a fund of last resort.

FSCC offered depositors options of getting all their money back or leaving fixed term savings until maturity.

Those who chose the latter, late last year, are set to receive the full interest promised by Icesave -- all 7-plus percent of it.

Since then, benchmark UK interest rates have gone down as low as 1.5 percent (and expected to hit 1 percent next month).