Paxman: If women want more pay they must negotiate better
HE is a veteran broadcaster known for his tough interrogations while at the helm of BBC Two’s Newsnight for more than 25 years.
And last night, Jeremy Paxman waded into the debate over the gender pay row engulfing the broadcaster – saying that if women wanted higher salaries they should have negotiated with more prowess.
At the Edinburgh International Book Festival, an audience member asked him about women’s salaries falling short, with Mr Paxman, 67, referring to Scottish presenter Kirsty Wark, who took over his flagship show.
He said: ‘This is the Kirsty Wark argument about, “Would I get paid more if I had a penis?”.
‘People are not negotiating big enough deals. It’s a market. It’s a bogus market, I agree, but it is a market and you’re going to find some people who will go off to ITV or Sky or whatever and get paid vastly greater amounts than they will get paid at the BBC.’
Discussing the general exorbitant pay of BBC ‘talent’, he told event chairman Ruth Wishart: ‘It’s absolutely ridiculous, of course, that anybody’s paid anything like that amount of money.
‘It’s completely ridiculous. There are really important jobs out there for which people should be paid better money, but if people can get paid for it, well, good luck to them I say.’
Mr Paxman also predicted that the BBC would now move to reduce male presenters’ salaries.
The revelations last month about the wages of top BBC earners also led to internal tensions, with some forced to defend their pay on air.