High-earning Zoe’s agent is on the Ball

GARY LINEKER feels he should not apologise for his BBC salary and why should he? If that is what the BBC wants to pay him, who is he to argue with its preposterous largesse on our behalf? he is still the highest Beeb earner on up to £1.36 million — down from £1.75 million before 2020, big deal.

But why is he so prized? What does he do that is so special that it commands such a top salary?

The world of football punditry is a mystery to me, but does Gary really say things that are worth, I dunno, £1,000 a word?

‘ The atmosphere was unbelievable at this game,’ he will say. Is that really so marvellous?

At £450,000, Alan Shearer is another pale, stale, white male offering expensive football punditry. ‘It looks to me like Roy is making it up as he goes along,’ Alan will say. Kerching!

It is impossible to put a price on popularity, public trust or star quality. Yet nothing about BBC salaries, published this week, makes sense. Surely it can’t be down to who has the best agent?

Take Zoe Ball ( up to £984,999), who has done nothing but drive down Radio 2 audience figures since she took over from Chris evans in 2019 (though they are inching upwards now).

You can accept the audiences are fragmented by more choice, but still wonder why she is in the top earners when she has lost more than a million listeners.

But the one that really gets me is Naga Munchetty (up to £369,999). Naga appears on BBC Breakfast, Panorama and her own show on Radio 5 Live — and she is awful on every one of them. ego overload! even with guests, her attitude is very much: ‘I’m the real star here, matey.’ Well, I guess she has to justify her salary somehow, even if only to herself.