Norton... Don’t attack me, look at ITV salaries
GRAHAM Norton has hit back at critics of his BBC salary – arguing his pay is dwarfed by the biggest earners at ITV.
The chat show host has said the annual revelation of what the BBC’s on-screen talent are paid is intrusive, blaming it on politicians who dislike the BBC.
He said: “That’s what’s odd about this situation, for the top 20 of us at the BBC.
“For some reason MPs want to know what famous people at the BBC earn.
“If they could get ITV to tell them what Phillip Schofield gets, they’d love to know. Also, what would really shock the public is to discover the disparity between ITV and the BBC.”
Norton, 56, earns £610,000 for his weekly Radio 2 show, plus TV specials such as Eurovision – and up to £2million for his BBC One chat show, which is not included in the figures because it is made by a production company.
Schofield and co-host Holly Willoughby are thought to earn £1.7million for their various ITV projects. Simon Cowell, Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly take home around £8million a year.
Norton’s chat show predecessor Jonathan Ross was paid £6million a year before he left the BBC in 2010. He now earns around £2million for his show on ITV.
Norton told Radio Times: “You may hate me or Gary Lineker [£1.75 million] or Zoe Ball [£370,000], but that’s not just what the licence fee is paying for.
“It’s not like I want to dob people in it, but you read that list and go, really? Me and Gary are top of the tree?”
Wealthy
Speaking as he kicked off the 12th run of his chat show, Norton admitted his pay packet is unjustifiable.
He said: “It’s made me far more wealthy than I ever thought I’d be or planned to be. All the people who say, ‘he doesn’t deserve that’, they’re absolutely right.”
He adds: “I should be an abject failure, in that I have no skills and I had no career plan. Yet I stuck with this hopeless endeavour and, somehow, it came right.”
He said he also worries the BBC will not exist for much longer. He adds: “People will look back at a golden age of the BBC and think that was an amazing thing we had and remarkably good value.”