TV’s Jon Snow takes a ‘£250k cut’ in gender pay gap battle

CHANNEL 4 News presenter Jon Snow, one of the highest paid newsreaders in Britain with a reported salary of £1million, reveals he has quietly taken a significant wage cut in an attempt to tackle the gender pay gap.

‘ITN’s not so good when it comes to equal pay, but I’ve taken a gender pay cut,’ Snow, 70, tells me.

‘I did it as a co-operative gesture. I took the cut over two months ago — 25 per cent. Alas, contractually, I am not able to disclose my salary then or now.’

Snow, who describes himself as a feminist, has been presenting Channel 4 News for nearly 30 years. Earlier this year Channel 4 revealed its female employees earn almost 30 per cent less in average hourly pay than men working at the broadcaster, where two-thirds of the top 100 best paid staff are male.

At the same time, ITN, which makes news programmes for ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, admitted to paying men an average of 18.2 per cent more than women, with 17 of its 20 top earners being men. ‘It’s a bit tricky because I’m employed by Channel 4, and they’re employed by ITN, so it was difficult to make the comparison [in gender pay gaps],’ he adds. ‘But anyway, the good thing is that money is now being spent on women. Mostly on women.’ As a privately owned company, ITN is not obliged to publish the names of its top earners. The gender pay gap in broadcasting became a political hot potato last year when the publicly funded BBC listed its employees, including newsreaders, who all earn over £150,000 — a fraction of Snow’s annual wage. The figures highlighted the disparity between the salaries of male and female presenters. As a result, six BBC stars — Huw Edwards, Nicky Campbell, John Humphrys, Jon Sopel, Nick Robinson and Jeremy Vine — agreed to wage cuts. Until now, Snow has said little publicly about his remuneration despite Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson calling on public sector broadcasters, such as Channel 4, to release pay details to help ensure men and women are on equal levels.