BBC hospitality drive triggers controversy

London: The BBC has admitted to routinely hiring a £20,000 (Dh124,000) a week villa in Cannes for entertaining media executives.

The holiday home, once owned by record producer Mickie Most, boasts an elegant swimming pool and terrace, panoramic views of the Mediterranean and a private chef.

Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show the corporation spent £90,530 in just three years, hiring the villa on five separate occasions. The BBC admitted to using the villa twice a year for "at least seven or eight years" although figures on its cost are available only since 2006.

The BBC paid £73,838 to use the villa on just three separate occasions between October 2006 and October 2008 and a further £16,692 on "travel and hospitality" during two stays in 2008 and 2009. The total cost of the villa, paid for out of licence-payers' money, is likely to be more than a quarter of a million pounds.

One TV executive who was a guest at the villa said: "It is a complete jolly. It is just wrong. They could stay in a hotel for 80 euros a night."

John Whittingdale, the Tory chairman of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, questioned whether it was "really necessary for the BBC to commit that amount of money in order to find commercial partners", adding: "You don't have to put people up in a five-star villa in Cannes."

The BBC hires the villa twice a year in April and in October for the five-day MipTV and Mipcom events which attract TV executives from around the world, to negotiate deals for the financing and selling of projects and programmes.

The BBC insisted the villa was good value for money, pointing out that its commercial agency raises more than £80 million a year in investment from co-production partners, distributors and publishers. The BBC said: "Mip and Mipcom are the main markets at which this business is conducted and hiring a villa has proved a cost-effective way of accommodating BBC staff and entertaining clients, distribution and co-production partners."

The disclosure follows the furore caused by the huge wages and expenses paid to senior BBC executives.