Balding’s shock Woman’s Hour presenters ‘paid 40pc less’

Woman’s Hour presenters are paid 40 per cent less than those on “comparable” BBC shows, Clare Balding has revealed.

The presenter (right), who was this week revealed to be among the BBC’S highest-paid talent, claimed that the reason for the disparity was because the Radio 4 programme had “only ever been presented by women”.

Balding said in 2010 she had two months with nothing in her diary, so she sat in for presenters on a number of different radio shows.

She said the pay for Woman’s Hour was “40 per cent lower” than the other programmes and she told host Jane Garvey: “I think there is a problem here. It is because only women have ever presented it.”

Balding, who earns a salary of between £150,000 and £199,999, said she had thought the programmes “should have been directly comparable”.