Opinion

Allison Morris: The BBC is out of step and out of order when it comes to pay

Allison Morris
Allison Morris Allison Morris

The BBC publication of its list of star employees who get paid more than £150,000 a year has caused quite the furore, despite really just confirming what most of us already know - women are still less valued financially than men when it comes to big corporations.

While locally all eyes were on Stephen Nolan and his £450,000 pay packet, I wasn't particularly shocked.

The big lad is never off the TV and radio, he was hardly putting those hours in for hugs and kicks.

I did however take a sharp intake of breath when the salary of Chris Evans was announced.

Evans who rose to fame on Channel 4 with shows like the Big Breakfast and TFI Friday was a celebrity very much of that time.

And by that I mean the lad culture of the 1990s, outside of work he would be pictured on the lash with Gazza and his entourage.

We now know what the excesses of that time did to the once iconic England footballer and so with hindsight it all seems a bit seedy and unpleasant now.

And yet the BBC still thought that made him a perfect fit to present their big earner Top Gear after they finally ran out of ways to defend Jeremy Clarkson.

Evans was as rubbish at that as Clarkson is obnoxious but he is still being paid over £2m to present a breakfast radio show.

The equivalent of a lottery win every year.

And we are told that is the market rate for such a person. Where? What market? Show me the people queuing up to pay that kind of money to a mediocre presenter whose main appeal is to football shirt wearing men called Dave.

Top Gear has a mainly male audience not because women don't like or buy cars, but because it's packaged and marketed to appeal to men.

And that leads us to the highest paid sports presenter Gary Lineker who at just shy of £1.8m also seems to earn more than any talking head is worth to host Match of the Day, a show with ... yes you guessed it, a mainly male audience.

Sue Barker, Gabby Logan and the wonderful Clare Balding all paid a fraction of his wage for sports presenting, which rightly raises the question, who sets these pay scales?

I mean Steve Wright, who I hadn't realised was still on the radio, gets paid half a million pounds.

This massive dose of publicly funded sexism has prompted 40 high profile women to sign a letter calling for faster action to close the gender pay gap and there is also speculation that at least two are taking legal action.

Clare Balding, Victoria Derbyshire and Angela Rippon are among more than 40 women to have signed a frank open letter to the corporation’s Director-General.
Clare Balding, Victoria Derbyshire and Angela Rippon are among more than 40 women to have signed a frank open letter to the corporation’s Director-General. Clare Balding, Victoria Derbyshire and Angela Rippon are among more than 40 women to have signed a frank open letter to the corporation’s Director-General.

This is all very admirable but the real gender pay gap will only be seen if or when the BBC publishes a list of its lowest earners, the cleaners and canteen workers and the young women and men desperate for a career in journalism or the entertainment industry working for little money.

The BBC by virtue of being publicly funded should be held to higher standard, instead they seem wildly out of step with the commercial sector which has been closing the gender pay gap year on year.

In part time employment, which women dominate because of socially constructed norms that make them the main child carers, there is now a negative gender pay gap with women earning more than men.

Only when executives value women, as audience members, consumers and talented individuals in their own right will such discrepancies in pay be solved.

Journalists such as Kirsty Wark and Victoria Derbyshire already earn significant salaries but how they are valued in comparison to male colleagues is important when young women are choosing a career.

Sky News and ITN both employ women in senior anchor roles, I'm going to hazard a bet Kay Burley doesn't accept a lesser wage than her male counterparts.

The BBC are out of step and out of order, and what last week's figures really show is that it's still a man's world, especially if you are a Radio 2 presenter.