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Four male BBC presenters agree to pay cut over equal pay revelations BBC in talks with male presenters over pay cut after equal salaries row
(about 4 hours later)
Jeremy Vine, John Humphrys, Huw Edwards and Jon Sopel agree to reduce their salaries John Humphrys, Huw Edwards, Nicky Campbell and Jeremy Vine are among those in discussions
Press Association Graham Ruddick
Fri 26 Jan 2018 07.44 GMT Fri 26 Jan 2018 12.52 GMT
First published on Fri 26 Jan 2018 06.42 GMTFirst published on Fri 26 Jan 2018 06.42 GMT
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Four male presenters at the BBC have accepted pay cuts following revelations over equal pay. The BBC is in talks with some of its best-paid male news presenters about taking a salary cut following the row about equal pay at the broadcaster.
According to the BBC News website, Jeremy Vine, John Humphrys, Huw Edwards and Jon Sopel have agreed, either formally or in principle, to reduce their salaries. John Humphrys, Jeremy Vine, Huw Edwards and Nicky Campbell are among the men in discussions with the BBC.
It comes after the BBC’s China editor Carrie Gracie resigned from her role in protest at unequal pay, and called for men and women at the corporation to be paid the same. Humphrys, who received between £600,000 and £649,999 last year for presenting Radio 4’s Today programme and Mastermind, has said he has offered to take a pay cut and a BBC source said he was “not alone in either offering or being cooperative”.
Last year, the broadcaster published a list of its top earners, setting out the pay for staff on more than £150,000, revealing a shocking gap in the earnings of its most well-known male and female presenters and actors. A BBC spokesperson said: “The BBC has agreed pay cuts with a number of leading BBC News presenters and others have agreed in principle.”
Radio 2’s Chris Evans topped the list on more than £2m while the highest paid woman was Claudia Winkleman on between £450,000 and £499,999. The equal pay row at the BBC took a further bizarre twist on Friday morning when the broadcaster made multiple changes to an online story about potential pay cuts for male presenters.
Humphrys, who presents the Radio 4 Today programme, was shown to earn between £600,000 and £650,000. The BBC ran a story on its website and in radio news bulletins that Humphrys, Vine, Edwards and the North America editor, Jon Sopel, had agreed to take pay cuts. The story was followed up by a range of media organisations, including the Press Association.
He said at the time: “I have taken a couple of sizeable, very large, very sizeable pay cuts just recently. How much? I don’t know ... Would I chop my salary in half? Maybe I would, I don’t know.” However, at about 9am, the BBC removed the four men’s names from the article and changed the headline to “Some BBC male presenters agree pay cut”.
Radio 2 host Vine was one of the highest paid stars, earning £700,000-£749,999, while BBC News presenter Edwards earned £550,000-£599,999 and Sopel, the BBC’s North America editor, received £200,000-£249,999. The story was then updated again to reintroduce their names, but with significant caveats. It said Vine, Humphrys and Edwards had agreed to reductions “either formally or in principle” and attributed this statement to Amol Rajan, the BBC’s media editor.
Gracie revealed she had been earning £135,000 before the BBC offered her a £45,000 rise, which she rejected. The changes are understood to have taken place after concerns were raised at the BBC’s morning news meeting.
The extent of the four presenters’ pay cuts is not yet known, BBC News reported. Campbell confirmed in his Radio 5 Live Breakfast show that he is one of the men in talks about a pay cut. He earned between £400,000 and £449,999 last year.
Vine also told reporters he had agreed to a reduction on his way to present his Radio 2 show on Friday.
“I think it needs to be sorted out and I support my female colleagues who have rightly said they should be paid the same when they’re doing the same job. It’s just a no-brainer, so it wasn’t a problem for me to accept one,” he said.
The discussions are thought to focus on men working in the BBC’s news division because the corporation believes the market for journalists has changed substantially in the past decade, and some of the pay packages it offered to staff have not stood the test of time.
The publication of the BBC’s pay list last year showed two-thirds of the best-paid, on-air presenters are men and some male staff may be receiving more than women for in effect the same job.
The pay row was dragged back into the open earlier this month when Carrie Gracie resigned as China editor and accused the broadcaster of a “secretive and illegal” pay culture.
The Guardian revealed on Thursday that the sports minister, Tracey Crouch, refused to be interviewed on Today after Humphrys made light of Gracie’s fight for equal pay.
The reason the BBC was told to publish the list of top earners was to demonstrate whether it is delivering value for money - in other words, whether it pays in line with the market. Given that no other broadcaster publishes the pay of its stars this is difficult to prove, but Tony Hall, the director general, insists the BBC aims to pay people at a discount to the market while Gary Lineker, one of the top earners, insists he has been offered more lucrative deals to leave. One publicly available pay deal is for Paul Dacre, the editor of the Daily Mail, who gets £1.5m a year - which would put him second on the BBC’s list behind Chris Evans. The reason the BBC was told to publish the list of top earners was to demonstrate whether it is delivering value for money - in other words, whether it pays in line with the market. Given that no other broadcaster publishes the pay of its stars this is difficult to prove, but Tony Hall, the director general, insists the BBC aims to pay people at a discount to the market while Gary Lineker, one of the top earners, insists he has been offered more lucrative deals to leave. One publicly available pay deal is for Paul Dacre, the editor of the Daily Mail, who gets £1.5m a year - which would put him second on the BBC’s list behind Chris Evans. 
Earlier this month, controversial off-air comments made by Humphrys about the equal pay row were heard in a leaked recording. In a leaked on-air recording, Humphrys joked about Gracie’s warnings over the gender pay gap at the BBC, telling Sopel: “Oh dear God. She’s actually suggested that you should lose money – you know that don’t you?”
The broadcasting veteran was heard to say he could hand over more than the entire salary of his colleague Sopel, and still be “left with more than anybody else”. A spokesman for Theresa May, asked about the pay cuts, said: “It’s rightly a matter for the BBC to set their own pay. What the prime minister is determined to ensure is that people are paid equally for the work they do. Any moves for the BBC to continue to take that seriously would be welcomed.”
Humphrys told ITV News he backed equal pay, stating: “We are in habit, Jon and I, of winding each other up and the purpose of this jokey - I emphasise jokey - exchange was a bit of mutual mickey-taking, and that is all it was.” Asked about the Guardian report that Crouch had declined to be interviewed on Today in protest at Humphrys’ remarks on the issue, the spokesman said: “I think her department has put out a statement to make clear that she wasn’t boycotting the programme and she spoke to a number of journalists, including the BBC.”
The BBC said at the time it was “committed to getting its pay structures right” and that it was conducting a “comprehensive analysis” of presenter pay. There are scheduled to be major developments in the BBC pay row next week. The corporation is likely to publish a report by the accountancy company PricewaterhouseCoopers about the pay structure for its on-air stars, including whether there are unjustified discrepancies.
Meanwhile, Gracie and Tony Hall, the BBC director general, will answer questions from the digital, culture, media and sport select committee.
BBCBBC
Equal payEqual pay
John Humphrys
Jeremy Vine
Nicky Campbell
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