...but David Attenborough still takes home £1.1million in a year
SIR David Attenborough earned more than £1million in a year, it emerged yesterday, as the BBC was accused of using a loophole to avoid revealing its top stars’ pay.
The Planet Earth presenter’s company reportedly made the astonishing pre-tax profits from his work for the Corporation, along with some other sources.
But many of Sir David’s fellow BBC employees are expected to avoid having their total pay packets revealed – despite the Government ordering that all stars receiving more than £150,000 must be named by July.
To the anger of transparency campaigners, shows commissioned by the BBC from independent production companies will be exempt from the new rules. This includes those made by BBC Studios – the Corporation’s new production division which will make dramas, entertainment shows and documentaries – when it starts trading without taxpayer funding from April.
Big names whose salaries will remain secret include Poldark lead Aidan Turner and Sherlock actor Benedict Cumberbatch.
Other stars such as news presenters Fiona Bruce and Evan Davis may only have their earnings partially declared.
Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said: ‘The BBC wants all the advantages of being taxpayer-funded and all the secrecy of being a private company. It can’t have both. If the BBC dropped the licence fee then what they pay their staff would be their own business.’
John Whittingdale, the former culture secretary, said use of the loophole was ‘not just going against the spirit [of pay disclosure] but is positively misleading’. ‘The BBC are being dragged kicking and screaming to this,’ he told The Sunday Times.
Sir David’s personal company David Attenborough (Productions) declared earnings of £905,000 after tax for the year to September 2015. His daughter Susan, a co-director of the company, confirmed this was from £1.13million pre-tax. But she said this included her father’s earnings from sources other than the BBC, including Sky.
The BBC’s latest annual report revealed that seven of its stars earned between £500,000 and £5million a year.
A Corporation spokesman said the Government had confirmed BBC Studios would not have to disclose pay as ‘it will be a commercial subsidiary and not reliant on the licence fee’.