Short of cash Jeremy? £750k Vine gets new job ... and has to ride across London between shows
IT seems Jeremy Vine may be feeling the pinch after agreeing to take a pay cut when it was revealed he was earning up to £750,000 at the BBC.
It is not known how much the Radio 2 host – the corporation’s fourth highest-paid star – will be losing but he will soon be topping it up with another job.
He is taking over from Matthew Wright as host of Channel 5’s morning current affairs show.
It means he will have 45 minutes to get across London for his BBC slot at 12pm. But Vine, 53, is a keen cyclist who could do the 1.8-mile journey from ITN’s studios to the Radio 2 base at Wogan House in around 14 minutes.
The Channel 5 show – which will be renamed from The Wright Stuff – runs for two hours from 9.15am on weekdays.
If Vine sticks to the same schedule as Wright, who used to wake up at 3am for his working day, he will already have been awake for nine hours by the time he starts the Jeremy Vine Show at the BBC.
Both are similar current affairs programmes and Vine, who also presents the BBC Two quiz show Eggheads, has celebrated the ‘beautiful editorial overlap’ between them.
He wrote on Twitter that the two-hour Channel 5 show is a ‘perfect fit’ with his BBC slot.
But others were less enthusiastic about his new role.
John O’Connell, of the Tax Payers’ Alliance, warned the BBC to ensure the extra work does not result in Vine’s listeners being ‘short changed’.
‘No one begrudges somebody willing to work harder and take on new projects,’ he said. ‘But the BBC must ensure licence fee payers are not short changed when its key staff on big contracts take on new work.’
The star was also criticised on social media. ‘Why does he need two jobs and big salaries?’ one person wrote. ‘Why not leave Radio 2 and let some fresh, female talent take over?’
Another said: ‘Overpaid Jer- emy Vine apparently not content with his huge BBC salary. Why is he allowed to take an additional job with a rival broadcaster? Funny they should swap one wet lettuce for another, though.’
The Wright Stuff, which Wright has presented for the past 18 years, will undergo a rebranding when Vine takes over in September. Yesterday he was asking his followers online for suggestions for a new name for the programme.
Last month an average of 227,000 viewers tuned in to The Wright Stuff, while the Jeremy Vine Show boasts 7.4million weekly listeners.
Vine said Wright had ‘built a brilliant show that’s a big part of the British TV landscape’.
He added: ‘I’m delighted to be carrying on all the conversations he has started, with all the guests he’s made me feel I know over the years.
‘Radio 2 has a beautiful editorial overlap with the serious but accessible agenda of this show. I am proud to be Channel 5’s choice to front it.’
Ben Frow, of Channel 5, said Vine is ‘a brilliant broadcaster… the perfect choice’.
The BBC said it had no concerns about Vine’s time constraints when he takes on the new role, adding: ‘We wish him the very best of luck.’
‘Let fresh talent take over’