Over 2 you, Zoe (but sorry, don’t expect Chris Evans’ pay packet)
IT’S one of the plum jobs on radio and for Chris Evans it came with a salary of £1.6million.
But when Zoe Ball takes over the BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show next year, she will be earning a lot less.
‘I’m definitely not expecting the same,’ said Miss Ball, 47, who was announced yesterday as the show’s first permanent woman presenter.
It is not known how much she will get, but she added: ‘ We have discussed fees and I’m very, very happy with what the BBC are paying.’
Evans topped the list of the broadcaster’s highest-paid stars last year with a salary of up to £2.2million. After a £600,000 pay cut, he came second on this year’s list after gary Lineker on £1.7million.
Miss Ball’s salary was not disclosed in the 2018 pay report after her Strictly Come Dancing spin-off show It Takes Two was moved to BBC Studios, the corporation’s commercial arm. Last year’s report revealed that she earned up to £300,000.
The mother-of-two said she was ‘ really privileged and really honoured’ to be given her new role.
She added: ‘I really hope they’ve given me the job because they think I’m the best one for the job’. Miss Ball also revealed that she ‘didn’t expect to get the call’ and started to doubt whether she was up to presenting the show, which attracts 9million weekly listeners.
But her 17- year- old son Woody was ‘the best person’ she spoke to when she was thinking: ‘I can’t do it, how could I do it, I can’t do it.’
‘He said, “Mum, come on. Don’t even think about it, it’s like the coolest thing you could do – be the first girl on Radio 2 Breakfast, it’s amazing”,’ she said after her appointment was announced on the show yesterday. Miss Ball, who was the first solo woman host on the Radio 1 Breakfast Show in the nineties, told Evans: ‘I am a crazy mix of elation, wanting to burst into tears, thinking about running away, everything. But mainly thrilled.’
She said she would have to ‘see how it goes’ when it comes to carrying on hosting It Takes Two, adding: ‘ I’m really hoping I can do both.’
Miss Ball, who was the favourite to take over the highprofile role, was previously at the forefront of ‘ ladette culture’ because of her harddrinking party lifestyle.
But she said: ‘ Things are very different 20 years on to the lifestyle that I lead. I’m a busy working mum now so life is very different.’
Sara Cox, who was also tipped to be in the running for the job, will cover for Miss Ball when she is on holiday for ten weeks of the year.
Evans, 52, who took over the weekday morning show from Sir Terry Wogan in 2010, announced that he was leaving the BBC to move to virgin Radio last month.
BBC director-general Tony Hall has said pay disclosures have made it harder to retain people like Evans.