My rage at BBC gender pay gap, by Radio 4 host
SARAH Montague has revealed she was ‘incandescent with rage’ when she discovered she was paid far less than her co-presenters on Radio 4’s Today show.
The broadcaster, 52, said she felt a sap for subsidising other people’s lifestyles after learning she was the only Today host paid under £150,000.
The pay gap will last for her lifetime because she had been encouraged to set up a private company rather than take on a staff contract, so has not accrued any pension, she said.
Miss Montague, a Today presenter for 17 years, was paid £133,000 which she described as ‘a very good wage for a job that I loved’.
But when the BBC published the salaries of its highest-earning stars last year she was the only one of the Today hosts absent from the list. John Humphrys earned up to £649,999, Nick Robinson up to £299,999, Mishal Husain up to £249,999 and Justin Webb up to £199,999.
While suspecting her salary was more modest than those of her colleagues, she had been unaware of how great the disparity was.
She claimed she had even been assured by her bosses she was not the programme’s lowest paid host. ‘I felt incandescent with rage,’ she wrote in The Sunday Times. ‘Managers, who over the years had become friends, had known these figures and thought them acceptable.’
She added: ‘Before the list was published I had thought there might be some moral high ground from taking less of the licence fee than others. What a fool I was. I felt nothing of the sort. Instead I felt a sap. For years I had been subsidising other people’s lifestyles.’
Even with Miss Montague’s work on BBC World’s Hardtalk and other Radio 4 programmes, she did not reach the minimum £150,000 level to be included on the BBC’s pay list.
And she said she discovered the true situation was far worse after learning she was the only Today presenter other than Humphrys who did not have a BBC staff contract. ‘When I joined the BBC more than 20 years ago I was told to set up a company, which means I haven’t taken a penny in benefits or accrued any pension,’ she wrote. ‘Because of that, the pay gap will last my lifetime.’
Miss Montague said the issue of her pay is ongoing, but she had negotiated a better deal for her new role hosting The World at One role using previous presenters’ salaries. Martha Kearney, who is moving from that show to Today, was paid up to £249,999 in the year to April 2017.
A BBC spokesman said: ‘We want to introduce a clear and transparent pay framework so everyone working for the BBC can have confidence they are being paid fairly.’