BBC star who says she’s victim of class bias
A BBC Breakfast presenter has claimed that she is paid less than other female colleagues because she is not ‘posh’.
Steph McGovern, 35, who has a strong regional accent from her upbringing in Middlesbrough, accused the corporation of concentrating too much on ethnic diversity at the expense of class.
The presenter said: ‘Throughout my career I’ve had to argue about [pay]. Posh women... are paid a hell of a lot more than me.’
She claimed she was told by one manager she was ‘too common’ to be a presenter, adding: ‘It’s not as simple as a gender issue – it’s partly down to class.
‘There are a lot of women who do a similar job to me who are paid a lot more... who are a lot posher than me.’
Last year the BBC faced a barrage of criticism when it released a ‘rich list’ showing that of the 96 top staff earning £150,000 or more, 62 were men and only 34 women.
Miss McGovern, who also presents Watchdog, was not on the list but revealed her annual salary has ‘just now’ reached six figures after a ‘significant pay rise’.
‘We concentrate too much on ethnic diversity and not enough on class,’ she told The Sunday Times.
‘It’s dead important to represent loads of different cultures. But what the BBC doesn’t do enough of is thinking about getting people from more working- class backgrounds. It’s just posh’.
Sophie Raworth, Victoria Derbyshire and Laura Kuenssberg – who earn more than £150,000 a year – are all privately educated. Fiona Bruce, who is paid up to £399,999 a year, Mishal Husain and Martha Kearney, who both earn up to £ 249,999, went to fee- paying schools before going to Oxbridge.
Of the nine women presenters featured in the news category of the BBC pay list, seven went to private school. The two state-educated presenters – Moira Stuart and Naga Munchetty – were in the bottom pay bracket of women news presenters.
Discussing the lack of regional accents and working-class staff on the BBC, Miss McGovern, who thinks presenters’ salaries should be capped at £150,000, said: ‘A lot of people in management are from the same background. We’re talk we’re ing more they class. implying She about themselves working-class So later how the “How insisted broadcaster do they do are people?” we she not know?’ represent was working should when not lessen ethnic its minority efforts backgrounds. to hire staff from
‘If you focus on class too, then that will bring with it diversity in every sense, not just ethnicity,’ she told The Guardian.
‘There shouldn’t just be a focus on ethnicity. A lot of people who talk to me in the street [and] say they like me on telly are people from ethnic minorities, because often from a similar socioeconomic background.’ Miss McGovern went to a city technology college and started working for the BBC on a work experience placement on Tomorrow’s World before becoming a part-time researcher while studying at University College London. The BBC said: ‘More than 80 per cent of the BBC’s workforce was educated in state schools and the BBC is more diverse than it has ever been.’ Last year the sports broadcaster Henry Blofeld claimed his Etonian accent is now ‘a disadvantage’ and would not land him a job at the BBC today. He told Radio Times: ‘I’ve got a voice now that I think is against me ‘I think there’s a certain disadvantage, probably. I understand that. It’s a changing world.’ Last month Carrie Gracie resigned as the BBC’s China editor, citing the corporation’s ‘secretive and illegal pay culture’ as the reason for her departure. Male BBC stars including Jeremy Vine, John Humphrys and Nick Robinson have agreed to take pay cuts as the broadcaster attempts to rectify its pay disparity.