Stephen Nolan’s Third Street Studios has amassed nearly ten times the amount of funds reported by Gary Lineker’s documentary and podcast production company, with both being formed in the same year.
Mr Lineker’s Goalhanger Films, which has produced programmes for the BBC but branched out to making highly successful podcasts, had funds of just over £400,000 at the end of May last year. Mr Nolan’s company had funds of just under £4m at the end of March 2022.
The Match of the Day presenter, who is separately paid approximately £1.2m directly by the BBC, set up his company in 2014 with Tony Pastor, former controller of ITV.
The company is best known for its sports documentaries, including on Wayne Rooney, and various podcasts. The documentaries were broadcast across the UK.
All bar one of the television programmes listed on Third Street Studios' website were broadcast on BBC NI only. A three-part series on Hydebank, not listed on the site, was broadcast on BBC network.
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Selling programmes to the BBC
Mr Nolan is the only one of more than a dozen of the highest paid BBC news and current affairs on-air talent with an outside production company making programmes and selling them back to the broadcaster. .
A review of the business and other public records of the top earning news and current affairs presenters across the UK reveal that none have production companies doing any business with the BBC.
Only one, breakfast presenter Naga Munchetty, was named as a director of a company reporting substantial outside income, just under £63,000 according to its latest accounts. It is not a production company.
Nolan's Third Street Studios has been commissioned to produce multiple programmes for BBC Northern Ireland, including the series, Jailed: Inside Maghaberry Prison, which is currently on air.
Nolan and his production company earned, banked or were owed more than £4m over a six-year period, with no evidence of being commissioned by any other entity other than the BBC.
Over a five-year period from when the salaries of the BBC’s top earners were first revealed in 2017, it is estimated Mr Nolan has earned approximately £2m in salary before tax up to the end of March 2022.
His main production company increased its funds over the same period from under £1m to £4m. Over the period, Nolan’s Third Street was commissioned to produce multiple programmes, including one-off productions and multi-year series, including The Top Table.
Stephen Nolan's three BBC deals
It is understood the broadcaster has three deals with the BBC: the salary for his radio shows, his company’s co-production contract to produce Nolan Live and a retainer for other shows for the BBC.
It is not known exactly when the retainer and co-production deal were signed but neither were penned more than three years ago.
The Irish News asked the BBC in London a series of detailed questions relating to Nolan, Third Street and the production company's relationship with BBC NI and senior management.
In a reply sent via BBC NI, the broadcaster stated: "We commission BBC programmes on an equitable basis and with a laser focus on audience benefit.
"All of them are subject to the same strict financial, audit and management controls. The specifics of individual programme and talent contracts and/or negotiations are commercially confidential.
“We take pride in the role that the BBC plays in supporting the local independent production sector, its developing network presence and the difference that our investment makes to the wider creative economy in Northern Ireland.”
The BBC did not answer a question asking for confirmation that none of the other leading news and current affairs talent have outside production companies that are commissioned to sell programmes back to the broadcaster.
Nolan's current affairs shows
Nolan Live and The Stephen Nolan Show are categorised as current affairs – something that’s reflected in the stories covered by these programmes and how they have been described over an extended period of time, BBC NI previously said.
Nolan’s Third Street Studios series on Maghaberry Prison was announced as one of the highlights of the Autumn schedule. He is fronting the programme which is now being shown across the UK on BBC 2.
Industry insiders said the cost to the BBC for this six-part series would be in the region of £300,000. Feed Yourself Fitter, six half-hour episodes broadcast earlier this year, would cost in the region of £200,000.
An independent production company – paid in stages from when the deal is first signed to delivering the product – would need approximately ten full-time staff, and other freelancers, to produce this amount of output, sources in the industry estimate. All the main companies also have their own editing facilities.
Third Street Studios does not have an office and reported three employees at the end of March 2022. Previous productions have relied on other independent companies.
Live studio audience
BBC staff from his radio show also work on Nolan Live, which pre-Covid, operated with a live studio audience.
The only other regular show with an audience on BBC NI, The Blame Game, welcomed back audience members last year. Nolan Live has not done so since restrictions were lifted post-pandemic. An audience adds a substantial cost to a production.
The Irish News understands that an independent production company would tender a price of around £75,000 per episode of Nolan Live, with as much as £20,000 on the hire of the Blackstaff Studio. The Nolan team, which works on the daily radio show and the television production, moved to the Blackstaff Studio several months ago.
BBC NI has refused to reveal details of its deals with Third Street, whose sole director is an employee of the public broadcaster, citing commercial confidentiality.
Shares in Third Street Studios, the Irish News has previously revealed, were transferred last November to a company solely controlled by one of the north’s leading bookmakers, Paul McLean.
The publication also revealed how the amount of funds in the company at the end of March 2022 stood at close to £4m, including outstanding loans of £900,000, far exceeding any other similar independent production firm in the north.
Non-BBC work
The Irish News has been unable to establish if Mr Nolan’s production company has earned any income other than from BBC commissions. No evidence of any non-BBC work – or substantial sales of programmes or intellectual property – could be found.
Mr Nolan did not answer when asked the question whether any of the earnings made by his company came from outside the BBC.
Messages seen by the Irish News reveal he has maintained a close working relationship with the top figures at BBC NI, including former director Peter Johnston, now head of editorial compliance in London, and Adam Smyth, the current director.
The messages reveal the presenter bypassed other management and contacted Mr Johnston, including telling the then director that any attempt by a senior editor outside the show “to get in between” the pair “would end in chaos”.
“He agreed with me,” Nolan said, adding: “Keep him out. That’s the key to our success.”
BBC insiders, and sources within the independent production sector, also point out Mr Nolan is able to promote his own Third Street television shows on the radio programmes.
Most recently, a substantial number of minutes on the morning radio show was devoted to the Maghaberry series .
Also cited is the The Top Table, which ran from 2017 to 2021. The programme was promoted on the radio show onmultiple occasions by the presenter.