REVEALED: HOW MUCH CITY’S TOP BBC STARS GET PAID
THE salaries earned by the BBC’s top South Wales stars have been revealed for the first time.
Cardiff’s Jason Mohammad, John Humphrys and Jeremy Bowen are among the top earners in the document published yesterday.
Only a third of the list of talent earning more than £150,000 are women, with the top names being men. Details of stars’ pay were revealed in £50,000 bands.
It also revealed the highest paid man, Chris Evans, earns at least £2.2m and the highest paid woman, Claudia Winkleman, earns £450,000.
And in news, the highest paid man, Jeremy Vine, gets £700,000 to £749,000. Fiona Bruce is the highest paid woman with between £350,000 and £399,000 and fellow newsreader Huw Edwards gets £550,000 to £599,000.
There have been questions raised over the gender pay gap.
“Is that where we want to be? No,” BBC director-general Lord Hall told staff in an internal video message.
He admitted the “disclosures highlight... the need to go further and faster on issues of gender and diversity” but said that the corporation was “pushing... faster than any other major broadcaster”.
Lots of the highest earning stars who regularly appear on the BBC are paid by independent production companies – they, in turn, are paid by the BBC.
BBC Wales presenter Jason Mohammad’s pay is in the £250,000 to £299,999 bracket. He joined the corporation in 1997, has presented Final Score and Match of the Day and was involved in the channel’s coverage of the Rio 2016 Olympics.
Cardiff-born journalist and presenter Jeremy Bowen’s pay is in the £150,000 to £199,999 category. He has been the BBC’s Middle East editor for nearly 12 years.
Radio 4 presenter John Humphrys, who was also born in Cardiff and hosts Mastermind, is paid £600,000 to £649,999.
Other famous Welsh names on the list include rugby pundit Jonathan Davies (£150,000-£199,999), newsreader Huw Edwards (£550,000£599,999) and One Show host Alex Jones (£400,000-£449,999).
Asked if the publication could lead to lawsuits from female presenters, Lord Hall said: “We will be working carefully and managing our relationships with the talent on which we depend ... I’m not going to re-run the arguments that we had with the Government on the charter.
“We lost those arguments. Let’s move on. I want to get the very best talent working for the BBC and the very best relationships with them.”
Match of the Day host Gary Lineker is the second highest earner and is placed in the £1,750,000 to £1,799,999 bracket. He earlier revealed he had turned down higher pay offers from commercial broadcasters.
Writing on Twitter, the former England striker said he had stuck with the Beeb “Because I love and value my job and BBC sport.”
Graham Norton is listed as between £850,000 and £899,999 – but as the list only includes cash from licence fee payers, that does not include his chat show, for which the BBC pays an independent production company, which in turn pays his salary.
Theresa May made a thinly-veiled jibe at the BBC during Prime Minister’s Questions, saying there are some people working in the public sector “who are very well paid”.
Responding to a question from Labour’s Ian Murray, Mrs May said: “I recognise that there will be people working in the public sector who do find life a struggle, who are just about managing – there will be people working in the private sector who are in the same place as well.
“I also say to him that, as we’ve seen in the figures that have been released today, there are some people who are working in the public sector who are very well paid.”
Director of BBC Radio James Purnell told Radio 2’s Mr Vine the BBC is “not the civil service”.
He added: “We take into account the job, but also what people bring to the BBC, their history, what they could get elsewhere. You would go mad if you start treating the BBC like the civil service, and if you do that it won’t be the BBC any more.”