Norton on only £3m... after £2m pay cut
GRAHAM Norton has seen his pay slashed by more than 40 per cent, according to figures released by his production company.
The BBC presenter is a director of So Television, which produces his long-running Friday night chat show, which paid him nearly £3million last year. But this was a drop of more than £2million compared with the previous year, when he raked in £5.19million.
Figures released by the company show that Norton earned £2.97million from ‘presenter fees’, ‘production fees’ and ‘royalties’ in 2018.
The money is understood to include his pay from presenting The Graham Norton Show, as well as a large part of his earnings from his other BBC work. But the exact details of where the money has come from are not disclosed in the documents.
In the summer, the BBC’s pay report showed the presenter was paid up to almost £615,000 for his work for the corporation, but this did not include his fee from The Graham Norton Show. His other BBC work includes a Radio 2 show and presenting the Eurovsion Song Contest.
The So Television figures, which include what Norton has earned from his chat show being sold around the world and other payments, will lead to speculation he has taken a pay cut.
So Television was bought by ITV in 2012 but Norton remains a director. The BBC’s report put Norton as its third most highly paid performer, behind Gary Lineker, on £1.75million, and Chris Evans – who has now left the corporation – on about £1.25million.
Last week, Norton said that the outrage over his salary would be greatly diminished if the public knew how much his contemporaries at ITV made. He told Radio Times: ‘For some reason, MPs want to know what famous people at the BBC earn. If they could get ITV to tell them what [This Morning presenter] Phillip Schofield gets, they’d love to know.
‘Also, what would really shock the public is to discover the disparity between ITV and BBC. People would go, “Wow!” ’