BBC radio news man ‘on £425,000’ a year!
BBC radio news presenter Eddie Mair earns £425,000 a year, it has been claimed. The wage would put him among a secret band of BBC ‘talent’ earning more than £150,000 but less than £450,000 who will avoid being named publicly under new rules.
Mair, 50, hosts Radio 4’s hour-long evening news show PM, and also does occasional holiday cover on BBC2’s Newsnight.
His take-home pay was reported to be £425,000 per year – nearly three times David Cameron’s £143,462 annual salary as the Prime Minister – on the website Heat Street.
Its UK editor, Miles Goslett, said the figure came from ‘one very wellplaced Radio 4 source’. When he put it to the BBC he said ‘they refused to deny it’ but a spokesman claimed it was a ‘wild exaggeration’. Culture Secretary John Whittingdale has backed down on forcing the BBC to reveal which presenters earn more than £150,000 but less than £450,000.
Instead, the corporation’s bosses will be required to disclose the names – but not the salaries – of who is on £450,000 or more, a list of nine people which is likely to include Chris Evans, Gary Lineker, Fiona Bruce and Graham Norton.
Mr Goslett said: ‘The TV licencepaying public would be truly shocked if they knew how many middleranking TV and radio presenters are paid between £150,000 and £450,000 per year.’ Dundonian Mair was once
‘Not accountable to the public’
voted the fifth most powerful person in radio by 70 industry experts for a Radio Times survey.
He was praised when he fronted the Newsnight report into the programme’s failure to broadcast its investigation into Jimmy Savile. He is also known for sparring with former BBC economics editor Robert Peston. When Peston took offence that Mair failed to credit him on the PM programme with a ‘scoop’ about the Government reneging on its pledge to curb bankers’ bonuses in 2011, Mair replied with heavy irony: ‘Oh Robert, I’ve let you down. I feel bad. I’d like to apologise.’
The BBC declined to comment on Mair’s salary yesterday. But sources described the £425,000 figure as ‘way off’ and ‘inaccurate and inflated’.
A BBC spokesman said: ‘The BBC already publishes data on the number and salaries of talent in news, radio, television and digital by broad bands in its annual report, and the names and detailed remuneration packages of management earning more than £150,000.’ A source at the corporation said: ‘By being the only employer in the market to publish levels of pay for on-air talent, the BBC would be less able to attract the best talent and keep talent costs down overall.
‘It would also drive talent to competitors or independent producers who would be aware of the rates they have to pay to attract talent from the BBC. Unlike senior managers, talent do not bear responsibility – and are not accountable to the public – for the running of the BBC and the spending of large sums of public money.’
They added: ‘It’s well known we pay less than other broadcasters – plenty of people have left us to earn more elsewhere. But the public also tell us that they want the best actors and presenters on the BBC.’