Your work’s not equal to Vine’s, BBC tells Ahmed
A PRESENTER who is taking the BBC to court over its alleged gender pay gap has been told her work is ‘not of equal value’ to that of her colleague Jeremy Vine.
Samira Ahmed argues she was paid only a fraction of what Mr Vine earned for ‘similar work’.
Documents seen by the Daily Mail reveal Miss Ahmed, 51, is claiming arrears of £693,245 in unequal pay.
Her case focuses on her contract for Newswatch, which she has presented since 2012. She is comparing her work to that of Jeremy Vine, 54, who presented Points of View between 2008 and 2018. He was paid £3,000 per episode, whereas Miss Ahmed received £440 per show.
The National Union of Journalists, which is supporting Miss Ahmed, says both host-led programmes are just under 15 minutes long.
But the BBC says that the shows’ presenting roles are ‘not like work or work of equal value’.
In a document handed out to an employment tribunal in London yesterday, the BBC writes: ‘The fee [for Mr Vine] ... reflected what type of programme it was and the fact that it was deemed to need a high-profile mainstream entertainment presenter.’
It also emerged that Roger Leatham, of BBC Studios Production, did not want to ‘antagonise’ him and believed ‘Jeremy didn’t think it was worth it when his fee went down to £1,500 a show’.
The BBC added: ‘Newswatch requires a trained, serious news journalist, not a presenter with a broad audience appeal. Those markets operate very differently and have done from the days of Morecambe and Wise and before.’
It also states Miss Ahmed began on the same rate of pay as her male predecessor Ray Snoddy and progressed to earn more than him on a comparable ‘per programme’ basis.
But Miss Ahmed claimed that she and Mr Vine had ‘similar experience and qualifications when starting the respective jobs’.
She also disagreed that Points of View was a light entertainment show, drawing attention to when it was presented by Anne Robinson.
‘Anne Robinson was recruited for it because of her skills as a print journalist,’ she said. ‘She was not recruited as a star of TV.’
She added: ‘Although there are differences between Points of View and Newswatch, I don’t understand how these have any impact on pay.
‘I still cannot understand how pay for me, a woman, could be so much lower than for [Mr] Vine, a man, for presenting very similar programmes and doing very similar work.’
The tribunal is expected to continue into the start of next week.
‘Did not want to antagonise him’