BBC starts to cut salaries of top male news presenters
John Humphrys among stars to take less pay in push to narrow gender gap
MALE news presenters on the BBC are to have their salaries cut after the corporation ruled that their generous pay deals “have not stood the test of time”.
John Humphrys is the first to signal that he is taking a cut, agreeing to reduce his salary for Radio 4’s Today programme to between £250,000 and £300,000 – a fall of around £150,000.
Huw Edwards, the BBC’S highest-paid news presenter with a wage of between £550,000 and £599,999, is in talks to take a significant reduction in salary.
The move comes as a Tory minister reportedly refused to be interviewed on the Today programme after Humphrys joked about the BBC’S gender pay gap. Tracey Crouch is said to be part of a group of female MPS encouraging a “potential boycott”.
Others thought to have agreed to lower their pay include Nicky Campbell, who co-hosts the breakfast show on Radio 5 Live and presents The Big Questions on BBC One.
Corporation sources said many news presenters had negotiated high salaries in the previous decade and it was time for them to come down.
The Noughties were an era when Natasha Kaplinsky was lured to Channel 5 for what she described as “an astonishing amount of money”.
“The market in journalism isn’t the same as it was, maybe 10 years ago,” an insider said. “Some of the deals we did in BBC News in the past haven’t quite stood the test of time... where we are today is a different place.”
The last big-money BBC defection was Robert Peston, who was poached by ITV in 2015 in a deal worth a third more in salary.
“We’re obviously grateful to John [Humphrys] for offering to take a further pay cut and he’s not alone in doing so. We are in discussion with a range of news presenters about reducing their pay,” the source said.
Humphrys has previously taken two pay cuts. His salary for 2016-17 was £600,000 to £649,999, around two-thirds of which was for the Today programme and the rest for presenting Mastermind.
He declined to confirm the exact details of his new salary last night, but said he would be taking “a substantial decrease”.
The new figure will narrow the gap between Humphrys and Mishal Husain, who earns between £200,000 and £249,999 for her work on Today and on television news.
Humphrys said he was taking into account the pay of all staff on the flagship show, not just women. “The Today programme has a limited budget. Whatever I get, it comes out of that limited budget.
“There are some people on the programme, like producers, who get relatively little. That’s probably my principal concern,” he said.
While those on contracts have to negotiate new pay deals at regular intervals, several highly paid news presenters, including Edwards, are on staff – meaning that the BBC cannot simply cut their pay but must persuade employees to give way.
A BBC source said conversations about pay were being held with star names “in a spirit of cooperation”.
Next week sees the publication of the long-awaited report on gender pay disparities for on-screen talent.