Media Matters
Stephen Glover
Fair-minded readers of The Oldie can be forgiven for believing the BBC is a misogynist stronghold in which women are deliberately paid significantly less than men for doing the same sort of job.
There was the case of the Corporation’s former China editor Carrie Gracie who complained loudly that she had been underpaid in relation to men, and even gave evidence on the subject for two-anda-half hours to a House of Commons committee, with supporters under the banner of the BBC Women group waiting sympathetically in the wings.
That there are anomalies between the pay of men and women doing similar jobs can scarcely be doubted. These were highlighted when Auntie was forced by the government last July to reveal the salaries of her ‘stars’ earning more than £150,000 a year. Sarah Montague, an obviously competent presenter on the Today programme, did not even make it on to the list. However, her colleague John Humphrys was recorded as earning between £600,000 and £650,000 a year, which admittedly included his hosting of Mastermind. He has subsequently accepted a sizeable, undisclosed pay cut. Arguably he is the BBC’S best interviewer, but was he really worth so much more than Sarah Montague?
The much-publicised case of the voluble Gracie is less black and white. She has expressed her dismay that her salary of £135,000 as China editor was so much less than that of Jon Sopel, the BBC’S US editor, who was paid between £200,000 and £250,000, according to the Corporation’s figures. She may have been underpaid in comparison, as the BBC seems to have recognised by dangling an increase of £45,000 in front of her – an offer she spurned before resigning as China editor. But the fact remains that Sopel’s job is considerably more important in journalistic terms than Gracie’s because he broadcasts much more often than she did.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of these cases, one important aspect has been widely ignored. In the past couple of years – starting long before the row over the gender gap in salaries – the BBC has given preferential treatment to women when making executive appointments. This bias is so marked that I am told by BBC insiders that well-qualified men working for the Corporation are resigned to missing out on plum jobs as women are routinely chosen.
The most recent example is that of Esme Wren, recently made editor of BBC2’S Newsnight. Whether or not she was the strongest candidate for the job (she hails from Sky News), I can’t say. No doubt she is excellent. My point is that the vacancy had to go to a woman. Weeks before it was filled, I was told by a source at the BBC that, whatever happened, the next Newsnight editor would be a woman, and the strong claims of a number of male applicants would be automatically disregarded. It’s called positive discrimination.
Whenever a senior executive job at the BBC has come up in recent times, it has almost always gone to a member of the fair sex. At the beginning of this year, Fran Unsworth took over the powerful job of BBC head of news. Last year, Sarah Sands was made editor of Today, while Hilary O’neill was put in charge of BBC1’S Question Time. In 2016, Rachel Jupp was made editor of Panorama. Anne Bulford assumed the role of deputy director-general in the same year, and Fiona Campbell was given the important new job of controller of BBC news mobile and online. Charlotte Moore was made director of content in 2016, and Joanna Carr was appointed head of current affairs at around the same time.
I repeat that my suggestion is not that any of these women is unqualified. It is simply that there is a new pattern of preferring female applicants over male ones when executive vacancies arise.
Something of the same tendency is visible on screen and on radio, though in a more random way. Doctor Who is now a woman, and Strictly Come Dancing is introduced by two women. Sarah Smith took over Sunday Politics after Andrew Neil stepped down, while Victoria Derbyshire has been given her own little-watched (and expensive) show on BBC2. Mishal Husain supplanted the veteran warhorse Jim Naughtie on Today, while, since January, Emma Barnett has introduced Five Live Daily on Radio 5 four mornings a week with the affable, and less abrasive, Adrian Chiles now having to make do with one.
The BBC Women group (leading activists include Jane Garvey of Woman’s Hour and radio presenter Fi Glover, no relation) would have us believe that their sex is suffering intolerable discrimination at the BBC. This is not the case. Such gender inequalities in pay as exist are already being attended to by nervous and compliant BBC bosses. The truth is that they have already stacked the cards in favour of women when handing out top jobs. It is a wonderful moment to be a high-flying woman at our public service broadcaster; a much less joyous time to be a talented man.