Lineker is still top earner at BBC despite £400,000 pay cut, annual report reveals
Sports presenter Gary Lineker is still the BBC’S highest earning on-air talent, despite last year agreeing to a pay reduction of around £400,000.
Zoe Ball remains the broadcaster’s second highest paid talent after requesting a pay cut when agreeing a new twoyear deal as Radio 2’s breakfast host.
The corporation’s annual report for 2020/21 shows it has slashed 10 per cent from its pay bill for top talent, after some of its biggest names agreed to salary cuts or quit.
It was announced last year that Match Of The Day host Lineker had taken a pay cut, which reduced his pay from £1.75 million to £1.36 million. The 60-year-old first topped the list for 2017-18 with a pay bracket of £1,750,000 and £1,759,999.
Meanwhile, Ball asked to reduce her pay by 28 per cent to £980,000 to reflect the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. This figure is lower than is listed in the 2020/21 annual report, which shows her earnings to be in the bracket of £1,130,000-£1,134,999 and which represents only a few months of Ball’s new salary deal – including the reduction the presenter requested.
A BBC spokeswoman said: “Zoe Ball is a world-class broadcaster hosting Radio 2’s flagship show and her professionalism and commitment to the Breakfast Show is extraordinary. She’s hugely talented and has made the show her own, with many millions of listeners tuning in each morning to the nation’s most listened
to Breakfast Show.” Speaking during the launch of the report, BBC director-general Tim Davie said discussions with top on-air talent over reducing their pay packets had been “mutual and constructive”.
“I am not going to give information on the specifics of the conversations,” he said. “All I would say is I think everyone recognises the strategy, which
is getting value to audiences and, without being funny, most conversations are mutual and constructive.
“Now, clearly as a management team, we want to get more value and we are willing to make tough decisions. I think these conversations have all been constructive, as with Zoe Ball where she came forward and said she wanted to adjust the salary. ”
The report also shows that:
• The gender balance of the top 10 highest-paid on-air talent was the same in 2020/21 as 2019/20, with six males and four females.
• Graham Norton is the only person to drop out of the top 10, after being the third-highest earner in 2019/20. He left his Radio 2 Saturday show for Virgin Radio in December last year, and appears on
the 2020/21 list with a salary of £155,000-£159,999. Norton’s popular TV chat show is produced by his own So Television and distributed by BBC Studios.
• The one new name in the top 10 is Radio 1 DJ Scott Mills, who is listed with a salary of £375,000-£379,999.
• The total number of staff with salaries above £150,000 has gone down slightly, from 76 in 2019/20 to 72 in 2020/21.
Since 2017, the BBC has been made to publish the names of those earning more than £150,000 each year, a move instigated by the Government. But pay packets made through BBC Studios, the broadcaster’s commercial arm, are not revealed.