Canny Norton takes home £5.2m on top of BBC salary

PUCKISH TV chat show host Graham Norton criticised the ‘pathetic’ decision to publish the salaries of the BBC’s highest-paid stars, claiming that some of the figures bore little relation to reality.

That’s certainly the case for Norton (pictured), as I can reveal that he earned millions more than his published salary of between £600,000 and £609,999.

New accounts for the television production company he founded, So Television, which makes his Friday night talk show, disclose that he was paid a staggering £5.2 million in the 17 months to the end of last December.

That’s a whopping increase of £2.6 million on the £2.6 million he received in the year to the end of July 2016.

‘The increase in pay is largely down to an 81 per cent increase in turnover from £11.6 million to £21 million, which is due to the improved performance of the company and the financial statements covering a 17-month period,’ says a note in the accounts.

Norton, 55, said in October that the BBC’s disclosures about salaries were not in the public interest and had done little more than to provoke ‘gossip’ about what people earn.

It was former culture secretary John Whittingdale who insisted that the BBC published the salaries of everyone earning £150,000 a year or more.

But Norton said: ‘ The public transparency was already there. They’d already published what proportion of the licence fee is paid to on-screen talent. Now, that’s the bit that people should be interested in. This bit is just gossip.’

The new accounts for So Television, now owned by ITV, report that the payment to him is for presenters’ fees, production fees and royalties. It made a £2.9 million operating profit on a £21 million turnover.

Norton said in 2011: ‘Will I take a pay cut? Absolutely. God, yes. There should be no special cases. The cutbacks at the BBC are across the board, which is how it should be.’