Living the Lavish Lifestyle at PBS

Is it any wonder these clowns will go to any lengths to protect their taxpayer-funded fiefdom? Wouldn't you if you were pulling in six figures and living large on the public dole?

The review of WGBH’s 2009 Internal Revenue Service filings — the most recent available — found:

• Four vice presidents and producers pulled in more than $300,000 — and another 10 took home more than $200,000 — in pay and benefits;

• 145 of WGBH’s then-950 employees — about 15 percent — earned more than $100,000.

• Ex-WGBH president Henry Becton Jr. — now the station’s vice-chairman — made $160,873 in total compensation for working just 24 hours a week.

• Top brass pocketed more than $200,000 in bonuses.

WGBH’s $425,000-a-year CEO, Jonathan Abbott, defended the salaries, saying he hasn’t had a raise since taking the helm in 2007 and that WGBH has to compete for talent with the country’s leading media companies.

“We also benchmark all of those salaries to comparable salaries at media and nonprofit organizations in this area and nationally,” Abbott said. “If you look at my compensation relative to . . . my peers in Boston or in this country, I am . . . paid a fair wage.”

WGBH’s sprawling six-story Brighton digs, built in 2007, include a spacious atrium with massive doors that lead to one of the largest TV production studios in New England, equipped with 500 lights. There’s also a spectacular performance and recording studio — with a floating wooden floor and nine-foot, full-concert, grand piano — that’s been used by the likes of Duran Duran and Yo-Yo Ma.

The building offers a panoramic view of Boston, as well as environmentally friendly dual-flush toilets and waterless urinals.

It's easy being "environmentally friendly" when someone else is paying for it. The fatcats need to be flushed down a waterless drain.