Radio 4 boss defends gender pay disparity
THE BOSS of Radio 4 has defended the station in the wake of the BBC’s gender pay gap – saying its presenters “are paid fairly”.
Salaries revealed by the BBC showed programme host John Humphrys earning £600,000 to £649,000 for the morning news programme and other work including
and host Eddie Mair (£300,000-£349,000) among the top-earners.
presenter Nick Robinson is on £250,000 to £299,000, ahead of female counterpart Mishal Husain (£200,000 to £249,000), who also presents TV news for the corporation, but their colleague Sarah Montague does not make the £150,000 pay bracket, while
hosts Dame Jenni Murray and Jane Garvey did not make the list. Radio 4 controller Gwyneth Williams, inset, said that pay at the station was “fair” and that the gender pay gap was a “BBC thing, with news and other issues”. Her comments were dismissed by a leading Radio 4 broadcaster, who said that the Radio 4 boss appeared “baffled”. “It’s absolutely right that everybody should be paid equally and fairly,” Ms Williams said. host Humphrys has previously said that he would “of course” do his job for less money, but asked about the possibility of some Radio 4 male presenters getting pay cuts, Williams replied: “Radio 4 people are paid fairly.” A RESIDENT in a North Yorkshire village rang a police call centre after seeing a Tesco delivery van – and claimed it was suspicious because “people in this village don’t shop at Tesco”.
The claim has been cited by North Yorkshire Police as an example of the inappropriate recent calls made to its 101 nonemergency number.
The force has made a number of changes to the way its force control room operates after a dramatic rise in the amount of time callers take waiting for a response.
A report about the new system being introduced from this summer includes details of cases where police time has been wasted by inappropriate calls.
Others included a caller who said: “I’ve set off to go on holiday and I’ve forgotten to put my bins out. Can the police go round and put them out?”