Lineker and Shearer: Worth that much of our licence fee?
It’s BBC salary publishing time again. It seems to come round quicker every year. There were no real surprises, but again no real justification for the whopping great annual salaries of certain personnel.
I bear no ill-will to anyone listed; nor blame them for accepting and you can also see why some are on this pay-scale.
Recently departed political editor Laura Kuenssberg, for example, was on a minimum £260,000. She has in-depth knowledge, experience and worked long and unsociable hours outdoors.
However, second highest earner was Zoe Ball, who hosts Radio 2’s Breakfast Show. Very good she is too; but for just short of a million quid?
The Beeb would argue, correctly, that she hosts the UK’s highest rated radio show. But they used to make the same argument about the insufferable Chris Evans.
The Radio 2 Breakfast Show draws listeners to its presenter; not the other way round. This was proven when Evans mercifully took his gibberish elsewhere while the listeners stayed put.
The perennially top earner is former footballer and leading junk food salesman Gary Lineker, on £1.35million. That’s a slight decrease from last year, but his mate Alan Shearer had, for some reason, a 15% rise taking him to £450,000 from the licence payer.
As for salaries being paid to prevent “losing talent”... I don’t wish to be unkind, but Lineker and Shearer are there solely because they were great footballers. This neither guarantees nor precludes broadcasting talent.
Match of the Day would be no worse or less popular if Lineker and Shearer were replaced by
Jeff Brown and Lee Howey. The football draws the viewers and nothing else; meaning that some people tune in despite, rather than because of, certain presenters.
Further down the list is Clive Myrie on £255,000. You may have seen him recently; a highly skilled journalist dragged away from his family to report from the war in Ukraine in a flak jacket.
To match Shearer he would need a 76% pay rise; 529% more to catch Lineker. If only Myrie could burble on about Arsenal’s midfield.
The BBC receives some absurd criticism, but really doesn’t help itself sometimes.