Mark Thompson’s successor as Director-General of the BBC should be paid no more than the Prime Minister, a Conservative frontbencher has said.

Jeremy Hunt, the Shadow Culture Secretary, said that Mr Thompson’s £834,000 pay packet was “just too high” and that whoever followed him should earn a similar amount to Gordon Brown’s £192,250.

Mr Hunt told The Times: “Under a Conservative government, we would expect a vacancy for the job to be advertised at a much more realistic salary — and we should look at the Prime Minister’s salary as a benchmark.”

Mr Hunt, who is line to become the Cabinet minister responsible for the BBC if the Conservatives win the next election, added that “it was a privilege to be the Director-General of the BBC”, saying that the corporation would still attract good candidates.

The Conservatives have criticised the earnings of BBC bosses and stars, including the £6 million a year paid to Jonathan Ross, setting the Opposition on a collision course with bosses of the public broadcaster in the run-up to the election.

Mr Hunt said that “50 people at the BBC are paid more than the Prime Minister” — and the Tories’ expectation is that by cutting the Director-General’s pay, executive salaries would tumble across the organisation, which is funded by the licence fee.

Those earning more than Mr Brown include Sharon Baylay, director, marketing, communications and audiences, who earns about £325,000, and Balraj Samara, who earns about £295,000. Both earn more than Jay Hunt, the woman in charge of deciding what is transmitted on BBC One, who is paid between £250,000 and £280,000 a year. Last year its top 11 executives earned £4.6 million.

A similar pay restriction would also be imposed on Channel 4, the state-owned, but advertiser-funded broadcaster, which is currently run by Andy Duncan on a salary of £683,000. “Channel 4 excutive salaries are, in our view, should be treated in the same way as the BBC,” Mr Hunt said. because Channel 4 should remain a public service broadcaster, providing “competition to the BBC in types of programmes that are not commercially viable,” he added.

On the BBC licence fee Mr Hunt said it should not rise any further than its current level of £142.50 a year: “It is completly ridiculous that the BBC is getting an annual increase in the licence fee when there is no inflation.”But he added that the Conservatives “had no plans” to privatise Radio 1 — knocking back a recent suggestion to the contrary by his deputy Ed Vaizey — and no intention of asking the BBC to close any of its television channels, radio stations or its online activities.

The Conservatives also want the pay of Mr Ross and other BBC stars to be made public, but Mr Hunt said that his party does not believe in a similar pay cap for household names. “We are not saying that Bruce Forsyth should only be offered £100,000 by the BBC, so that he can go to ITV if he wants to earn more. But we want to see a public debate on how much the BBC spends on talent,” Mr Hunt said, reiterating previously stated Conservative policy.

The BBC has fiercely resisted revealing how much its stars earn, although it has promised to release a “global figure” as to how much its best known names are paid in total. A string of leaks in 2006 revealed that Sir Terry Wogan is paid £800,000 a year for his Radio 2 programme, while Chris Moyles earns £630,000 on Radio 1. Since then the BBC has been trying to cut stars’ pay by about 20 per cent.

Corporation bosses also argue that disclosure could actually drive up income as people seek deals to match the best paid names. However, Mr Hunt said that he believed publication “would have a deflationary effect, as the publication of MPs expenses will have a deflationary effect on claims. This is the public’s cash and they have a right to know what is spent.”

At the end of August at the Edinburgh Television Festival, Jana Bennett, the BBC’s director of television, claimed that viewers would not be able to understand fair rates of pay for stars, saying it “is a category error to suggest that the public would actually be able to contribute to working out what we do about it”.

However, Ed Richards, the chief executive of Ofcom, said he thought disclosure was inevitable. “It feels very difficult for a public institution that pays millions to individuals to not reveal that,” he said.

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