Norton’s £5m earnings nine times BBC pay
PRESENTER Graham Norton earned £5.2million last year – nearly nine times his BBC salary, it has emerged.
The 55-year-old star was revealed to have been paid between £600,000 and £609,999 when the Beeb published the wages of its on-air talent in July.
The figure was believed to have been made up mostly of his Radio 2 salary.
But now the full scale of his earning power has been disclosed when his earnings as a director of So Television, which makes his Friday night chat show, are taken into consideration. Accounts show his fees from the company almost doubled from £2.6million declared the previous year.
It is partly due to an accountancy change which means the figures cover 17 months instead of 12.
But even taking this into account it puts him at the top of the list of BBC’s presenters – way ahead of Gary Lineker and Chris Evans.
Accounts for So Television state that he got such a big pay rise because the company performed well, with turnover rising from £11.6million in 2016 to £21million. Norton got nearly £5.2million for presenter fees, production fees and royalties, according to papers filed.
He has won five BAFTAs for The Graham Norton Show, which was originally on BBC Two.
His career as a chat show host began on Channel 4 with the series So Graham Norton but he moved to the BBC in 2005.
He got the prime-time Friday night slot after The Jonathan Ross Show was ditched in 2010 and cemented himself as one of the BBC’s biggest stars. He sold So Television, which he set up 16 years ago, in 2012 but remains a director. Earlier this year Norton condemned “short-sighted” celebrities who go to great lengths to avoid paying tax.
He said: “You see people who are worth a billion and they’re still doing tax dodges and you think, ‘How can you be bothered?’
“These people would be just as rich if they paid the tax and would be living in a much nicer country where people were looked after and crime was less and housing better.
“So the money you’ve saved on tax, you’re probably having to use to pay for barbed wire around your property. It seems wrong-headed.”