BROADCASTER Stephen Nolan has defended his hefty BBC salary, saying he has always maintained, "I want to earn as much as I can".
The Radio Ulster and Five Live host is among the top 10 highest paid on-air stars at the BBC earning between £400,000 and £449,999.
Nolan was named amongst 96 BBC television and radio stars whose annual earnings exceed £150,000, with his pay packet the equivalent to more than 3,000 BBC licence fees.
His salary reflects the combined fees he receives to cover his work on up to 10 radio shows a week for Radio Ulster and Five Live as well as his television show, Nolan Live.
However, details of his earnings through programmes commissioned for the BBC from his independent production company are not included in the figure.
The Belfast-born presenter yesterday defended the pay packet he receives, but said he "would not be as arrogant to say what I am worth".
"But I am fair game and ready and prepared to answer questions," he told BBC Radio Foyle.
"The facts are that I am doing five radio shows a week on Radio Ulster. I'm doing three Nolan shows on 5 Live, it's a network job.
"Then I do Question Time Extra time, another job I managed to get. And then I am doing 18 Nolan Live television shows a year.
"Now it's for others and its for the BBC to decide. The BBC has very skilled negotiators who understand the market and they try to negotiate what they think they need to pay for the presenters they want.
"And I want to work at the BBC.
"I have always said from day one I want to work as much as I can hard as I can, be the best I can be and yeah I want to earn as much as I can."
However, he refused to reveal how much he had earned for programmes made by his production company.
"At the end of the day, I try to come with ideas and I try to win business, the BBC are not releasing how much they pay for private productions, it's a commercially sensitive business," he said.
"I'm trying to win independent business by coming up with really good ideas that might be able to be commissioned by the BBC or indeed other broadcasters and I'm talking to other broadcasters too - that's what production companies do."
He also revealed "other offers had been made (to me) where I could have made more money for doing significantly less", but refused to say who had approached him or how much money had been offered.
"It's a pleasure for me to work at the BBC and being paid a lot of money to do it," he added.
BBC Northern Ireland also defended the salary paid to Nolan, listing the awards he had won while working for the corporation.
"According to the latest RAJAR figures his BBC Radio Ulster programme is the most listened in Northern Ireland and he also presents the BBC Northern Ireland television series Nolan Live, which regularly attracts an audience share of more than 30 per cent," a spokesman said.
"Now with the BBC for 13 years, Stephen is hugely popular with our audiences and is also a multi-award winning presenter.
"He holds the record for winning the most Sony Radio Academy Golds, with seven to his name, and is the current Radio Academy Speech Broadcaster of The Year.
"He is also a two-time recipient of the Nick Clarke Award and has won Royal Television Society awards two years in a row for his television work."
While Nolan was the only Northern Ireland-based presenter to make the BBC pay dossier, a Belfast-born actor was among the corporation's highest paid performers.
Casualty star Derek Thompson is the BBC's highest paid actor, ranking above stars such as Eastenders actor Danny Dyer and former Doctor Who Peter Capaldi.
Thompson, who has played Charlie Fairhead since the medical drama began in 1986, earns between £350,000-£399,999.
