£350k Eddie MairPage quits the BBC af ter refusing a pay cut
Star in talks to join LBC... for even more money
EDDIE Mair has quit the BBC after refusing to take a pay cut.
The Radio 4 star, who has been at the corporation for more than 30 years, earned up to £350,000 last year.
The PM presenter is in talks to move to talk radio channel LBC – and it is thought he will be given a significant pay rise when contracts are finalised.
In a light-hearted statement yesterday, Dundonian Mair, 52, said he felt it was the right time to leave. He said: ‘It’s 31 years since I joined the BBC, 25 years since I first presented PM, and 20 since it became my main gig.
‘I thought this was the appropriate moment to step out and give someone else a chance, before I’m so old my sentences make no lasagne.’
But sources say the frustrated star has quit because he believed he would be overlooked as a replacement for David Dimbleby on Question Time – as he thinks the role will go to a woman.
His decision to leave comes days after the BBC paid a six-figure sum to former China editor Carrie Gracie over a gender pay row.
The corporation settled the claim with the journalist, who quit after finding out that she was being paid tens of thousands less than her male counter-
‘No point in sticking around’
parts, on Friday. Mair is thought to be the only top-earning male star who refused to take a pay drop to tackle the BBC’s equal pay crisis.
Huw Edwards, Jeremy Vine and John Humphrys are among the highly-paid presenters who agreed to take a cut to help with gender pay inequality.
In July last year, the BBC revealed the salaries of on-air talent earning more than £150,000. Two-thirds of those on the list, including the top seven earners, were men.
Mair is now in talks to move to LBC, where he would join presenters Nick Ferrari and James O’Brien.
It is thought Mair will be paid substantially more if and when he joins.
The presenter was previously in the running to take over from Jeremy Paxman as lead presenter on Newsnight.
However, the BBC is said to have decided against the appointment because the broadcaster wanted too much control over the programme.
According to sources, he also thought there was ‘no point in sticking around’ to see if he would be the next Question Time host, as he feels it will go to a female presenter.
Yesterday, in his self-mocking statement, Mair said whoever took on his role on PM would have ‘the best job in the BBC’. He added: ‘I realise the BBC will close down without me and there’ll be a run on the pound but I can’t stay in an organisation that refused to let me host Songs Of Praise. I bought a jacket and everything.
‘I’m truly grateful to the BBC, however, for being given more opportunities over the years than I deserved.
‘My apologies to PM listeners for all the things I’ve said that I shouldn’t have, and all the things I should have said that I didn’t. Whoever comes next will be getting the best job in the BBC and I honestly wish them the very best.’
The presenter later joked on Twitter about his PM colleague Corrie Corfield, posting: ‘Thank you for all the kind words. I appreciate them. But there are journalists in the world who are being shot, jailed, held hostage or forced to work with @ corrie-corfield. I’m only changing jobs.
‘So please do something about them. (Not Corrie. She’s lovely. Mainly).’
Fran Unsworth, director of BBC News, said Mair has had a ‘fantastic career’ at the corporation, adding: ‘Eddie has delivered outstanding journalism and created a real bond with the audience through his mixture of warmth, incisive questioning and knowing when to listen in order to get the very best out of his guests. Eddie leaves with our thanks and everyone at the BBC wishes him well.’
Mair joined PM as a regular co-host in 1998 and became the sole presenter of the programme in 2003.
His last show at the helm of PM will be on August 17.