THE BBC has been urged by ministers to end the culture of “fat cat” pay for top presenters or risk cuts to its £3.4 billion a year of public funding.

Andy Burnham, the culture secretary, has issued a warning that the seven-figure contracts given to stars such as Jonathan Ross are undermining licence fee payers’ confidence in the broadcaster.

Burnham is understood to have told Sir Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC Trust, that the corporation needed to show “sensitivity and an awareness of where the public are”. Ministers believe the recession has fuelled hostility to the elite presenters who are insulated from the economic downturn.

Ross, who is on an £18m three-year contract, was last week suspended without pay for three months over obscene telephone calls made to Andrew Sachs, the Fawlty Towers actor, during a Radio 2 show. The row puts BBC chiefs in an awkward position. They are keen to hang on to Ross, but they cannot renegotiate his salary until his contract comes up for renewal next year.

Ross, 47, is planning to “reinvent” himself during his enforced absence and will have to curb the lewd behaviour that has made him such a controversial figure. “He’ll come back as a different act,” said a source.

Sir Michael Parkinson, the veteran chat show host, attributed Ross’s behaviour to a “fit of madness”. He said: “Jonathan should have more oil in his lamp, frankly - more sense. He’s very good at his job but he’s given to fits of madness now and again and I think he had one on this occasion.”

A source close to Burnham said: “Andy is by instinct a friend of the BBC and would not dream of undermining its oper-ational independence. But if it is going to make a case for the licence fee, the BBC needs to show a certain sensitivity and an awareness of where the public are. He believes it will be harder to argue the BBC’s corner unless it is seen to be tackling the salary culture.”

Burnham spoke to Lyons about the problem of star salaries before the scandal broke and remains concerned.

Figures obtained by the News of the World under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the BBC's top 50 highest paid executives earn up to £14.3m a year between them; 50 managers earned more than £190,000 last year, with Mark Thompson, the director-gener-al, on a package of £816,000.

The corporation faces a political backlash after the lewd phone call scandal involving Ross and Russell Brand. The row led to Brand quitting the BBC and also claimed the scalp of Lesley Douglas, controller of Radio 2.

Thompson said that Douglas had been made aware of “key parts” of the offensive messages left on Sachs’s answerphone, but had failed to prevent the prerecorded show being broadcast.

Ross is the highest paid BBC presenter but Graham Norton has reportedly signed a £5m deal over two years A BBC spokesman said last night: We fully appreciate that to the general public these are very large salaries but we can't just go and cut these people’s salaries because we are in a recession; they have contracts." The Tories may chop the licence fee by about £6 a year if they win the next election. Some would like to see deeper cuts to the BBC’s budget.

Lord Carter, the communications minister, is reviewing the future of broadcasting. His report could recommend “top-slicing” the licence fee of £139.50 a year to subsidise other broadcasters such as Channel 4 after 2012.

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of the Decade
• 70 facts you didn't know about Marvel
• The 50 Biggest Movies Of 2010