Gary Lineker has maintained his position as the BBC’s highest paid presenter in a year when he was suspended for criticising the language used by ministers when discussing the government’s asylum policy, the BBC annual report reveals.
The Match of the Day host was paid £1.35m in the last financial year, the same amount he received the previous year, and well ahead of the BBC’s second highest earner, Zoe Ball, who remained on £980,000 a year.
The pay of leading BBC stars has remained largely static but the News at Ten host Huw Edwards became the BBC’s highest paid journalist. He received a £25,000 pay rise in return for hosting a number of news specials, including coverage of the Queen’s funeral. This took Edwards’ total BBC salary to £435,000, pushing him up to fourth place on the overall pay list. He is just behind the Match of the Day pundit Alan Shearer on £445,000, and ahead of the BBC Northern Ireland presenter Stephen Nolan on £415,000.
The pay of the director general, Tim Davie, who was forced to climb down over his decision to suspend Lineker after a backlash by the presenter’s colleagues, increased slightly to £525,000.
The figures were contained in the BBC’s annual report, which was released on Tuesday. The report was planned long before the BBC was thrown into crisis by allegations against an unnamed senior BBC presenter, which has led to his suspension.
It reveals the enormous financial challenges facing the BBC. It is losing licence fee payers at a substantial pace, with 500,000 fewer households paying the £159 annual fee compared with last year.
The annual report also shows how the BBC is struggling to attract younger audiences. The broadcaster’s reach among 16- to 34-year-olds has slipped significantly, with only 76% of the age group using any BBC service in a normal week, down from 81% last year. Among this age group, the audio app BBC Sounds only added 20,000 active users, despite it being the focus of the BBC’s efforts to reach young people with podcasts.
The figure was worse for children under 16, with just 72% using BBC services in an average week, well behind YouTube.
The BBC’s interim chair, Dame Elan Closs Stephens, said: “The BBC has to serve its broadcast audience as well as its digital-only audience – and to do so in a harsh financial environment.”
Combined with rising inflation and government-mandated freezes in the licence fee, the BBC said its income had fallen by 30% in real terms since the coalition government began implementing austerity policies in 2010.
The BBC’s median gender pay gap increased from 5.9% to 7.3%. This is the second increase since the BBC started publishing the statistics in 2017, when the gap stood at 9.3%.
The corporation’s annual report said: “We expect small fluctuations in the pay gaps each year based on new hire and leaver numbers, as well as any specific pay interventions.”
Since 2017 the BBC has been required by the government to publish the salaries of employees who earn more than £150,000 a year from the licence fee. The annual pay disclosure has dominated headlines, created rows over the gender pay gap, and led to the departure of some of the corporation’s leading stars. This year the BBC has raised the threshold for disclosure to £178,000 – meaning many presenters and executives no longer have their pay publicly disclosed.
Under the old system the BBC would have disclosed the salaries of 220 employees who earned more than £150,000, thanks to a large number of people having received pay rises that took them to that level. This year only 135 were named.
The list does not include individuals who work for the BBC’s commercial arm, meaning actors on popular television shows are not included.
