Fury as BBC pledges reform while staff pay soars 3.5% – despite stripping 1.5m of free TV licences

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The BBC has come under fire after it published accounts today showing that staff pay had soared 3.5 per cent to £1.5billion this year – while the Corporation pushes ahead with its plans to strip a million over-75s of their free TV licences. 

Accounts published at noon showed that Zoe Ball is now the BBC’s highest earner after pocketing a £1million pay rise – knocking Gary Lineker off the top spot.

The Match of the Day star, 59, is understood to have signed a new five-year contract – and a nearly 25 per cent pay cut from £1.75million down to £1.35million.

Radio 2 presenter Ball, 49, is now earning £1.36million in a triumph for liberals set to right the wrongs of the equal pay scandal which has plagued the BBC for years.

But critics have blasted its decision to reward its staff with a total 3.5 per cent salary increase after it announced plans to slim down its operations after the pandemic. 

Others have pointed to its shocking push to strip 1.5 million pensioners of their free TV licences as the BBC seeks to capture younger audiences in its war with Netflix.  

BBC director-general Tim Davie defended Ball’s huge pay rise after she shed nearly a million listeners in the first year in her new role, saying it was a ‘punchy’ market.

‘Zoe is absolutely a broadcaster at the top of her game. She’s delivering over eight million listeners,’ he boasted. ‘I think we’re getting incredible value.’

Asked about the likes of Lineker still earning more than £1million, Mr Davie said he would expect ‘people to come to the BBC at a significant discount to what they’d get in the open market’. But he added: ‘We will invest in very limited situations in particular markets to ensure we have got the best talent.’ 

Furious Twitter accounts lashed out at the BBC, with one commenting: ‘There is no possible way that anyone can justify the extortionate salaries at the BBC.

‘This simply can’t go on. Using the license fee as a way of paying for some of the BBC dinosaurs should be a criminal offence’. 

Responding to Lineker’s pay rise, one tweeted: ‘How the hell can they justify giving Lineker such an obscene salary?’ Another commented: ‘Mr Lineker, do you not feel any sense of guilty at receiving such an obscene amount of money?’

‘You smug bar steward,’ one account tweeted: ‘That’s the elderly you’re insulting whilst gloating. You get paid your inflated salary directly from a ridiculous tax.

‘If the BBC had to pay its own way, you’d be singing a different song’. Another commented: ‘How can the BBC justify these disgusting salaries?’  

• BBC announced highest earners list which showed staff wages rose to £1.6billion
• Radio stars Steve Wright, Vanessa Feltz and Lauren Laverne had pay increases
• Newsreader Huw Edwards was only one in top ten to get a cut in money earned
• Tim Davie admitted diversity of the biggest earners had to be improved
• Pensioners’ campaign group Silver Voice said the huge pay and rises suggested ‘a warped sense of priorities by the BBC in a time of difficulty’
• Anti-licence fee campaigners the TaxPayers’ Alliance said the ‘BBC salary surges for loaded luvvies fly in the face of ratepayers facing economic ruin’

The BBC’s 268-page report published at noon today is full of congratulatory self-praise, with Mr Davie claiming: ‘The past few months have served as a powerful reminder of just how much the BBC matters to all of us, and our families. 

‘The programmes and services we provide for audiences have never been more relevant, important or necessary. I am proud of how quickly and effectively the BBC rallied around the needs of the nation when the coronavirus crisis struck.

‘Our teams not only kept services up and running at a uniquely testing time, they also showed remarkable dedication, flexibility and resourcefulness in reshaping them around the most urgent requirements of our audiences’.  

It dedicates a full 38 pages to its so-called Equality Index Report, which lists the numbers of people who tick quotas – including equal numbers of men and women, more equal numbers of straight and homosexual people, racial ethnicities and even religious denominations.

However, the BBC also shows that bullying and harassment claims in the workplace have gone up since last year, with 92 formal cases – 10 of which are sexual harassment cases – this year compared to 86 formal cases in 2019.

The report also reveals that the BBC is losing young viewers, audiences in the North and Midlands as well as the trust of the BAME community, with one fifth of under-16s not using any BBC content, while those aged 16-34 using YouTube as their main viewing outlet.

The time spent watching the BBC fell in the North (by 12 minutes a week) and the Midlands (13 minutes) last year. 

‘Netflix is often seen to be market leader by younger audience members,’ the BBC’s annual report admitted.  

It comes as Ball overtakes Lineker as the BBC’s biggest-earning star. The Match of the Day star has been the firm’s highest-paid firm since 2018 – when Chris Evans, the previous spot-holder, left. 

Earlier this month Ball splashed out an estimated £1.5million on a country mansion built by a Russian aristocrat.

The six-bedroom property, which was created by Baron Vladimir de Wolff in the 1920s, has a swimming pool, tennis court and acres of gardens.

Pay packets made through BBC Studios, the broadcaster’s commercial arm and responsible for the likes of Strictly Come Dancing, Antiques Roadshow and Doctor Who, are not disclosed in the new accounts.

Graham Norton takes about £725,000 for his Radio 2 show and some TV work, but not his chat show. Radio 2 DJ Steve Wright is on about £475,000.

Newsreader and election night presenter Huw Edwards is on more than £465,000. Fiona Bruce takes home over £450,000 for her work on Question Time.

BBC Radio London’s Vanessa Feltz is on about £405,000. Desert Island Discs host Lauren Laverne makes the top 10 for the first time, with more than £395,000.

Broadcaster Stephen Nolan is on over £390,000 for his radio work, including 5 Live. Match Of The Day’s Alan Shearer is on the same figure.

Laverne took over from Kirsty Young on the Radio 4 programme, while Bruce followed in the footsteps of David Dimbleby.

The BBC previously opposed the publication of salaries as a ‘poacher’s charter’, but then-boss Lord Hall later said he welcomed the ‘transparency’.

The salaries are being published amid questions about how the BBC will be funded in future.

The licence fee model is guaranteed until December 31 2027, the end of the current charter.

Decriminalisation of licence fee evasion could also be on the cards – but the BBC has warned that switching to a civil system would cost the broadcaster more than £200 million a year.

The BBC began means-testing the free TV licence for over-75s in August, having previously delayed its introduction because of the pandemic.

It came as it emerged last night that the BBC had given pay rises to more than 700 female employees since the start of its equal pay scandal.

A Freedom of Information request revealed that at least 84 women were given pay increases through formal processes between July 2017 and March 2020. During the same period, 608 women received a pay revision or increase through an informal pay enquiry.

The pay revelations are set to reignite fury over the BBC’s decision to strip over-75s of their free TV licences. Responding to the publication of BBC star salaries, John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: ‘BBC salary surges for loaded luvvies fly in the face of ratepayers facing economic ruin.

‘These bumper Beeb pay packets are picked from the pockets of pensioners and poor taxpayers, who are fed up of forking out for the licence fee under pain of imprisonment.

‘It’s high time we axed the TV tax, introduced a subscription service and stopped taxpayers’ money going to these media millionaires.’

The BBC has insisted it cannot afford the concession for all pensioners and says only around 900,000 who receive Pension Credit would continue to get it.

Meanwhile, Netflix bosses have thrown their weight behind the long-term future of the BBC and voiced support for continuing the licence fee.

They say the streaming service, which has been hoovering up viewers from traditional TV stations, benefits from a creative landscape crowded with thriving public service broadcasters.

Two senior executives were today grilled by MPs and faced repeated probing over their forecast for the BBC and its taxpayer-funded model.

Anne Mensah, vice president of original series at Netflix and herself a former Corporation employee, suggested it should continue to operate with a licence fee.

Appearing via video-link to the Commons’ Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, she said: ‘I absolutely believe in the long-term sustainability of the BBC.

‘I love the BBC, I think that they make some of the best shows, if you look at what they have done this year from I May Destroy You to A Suitable Boy.

‘I back the idea of having a UK creative economy that is built on a number of different models from subscription through to licence and I would hate to see the BBC diminished in its impact in the UK.’

Last night pensioners’ groups demanded the corporation slash star pay if they are to expect over-75s to pay for their licences.

Dennis Reed, of pensioners’ campaign group Silver Voices, said: ‘This increase shows a warped sense of priorities by the BBC in a time of difficulty.

‘I would like to see them giving equal priority to poorer pensioners who struggle to pay their licence fee.’ 

Tim Davie, the BBC’s new director-general, has vowed to slash the number of people employed by the corporation.

He also said he was glad Lineker has signed a new five-year contract with the BBC.

‘And he has done so at a saving of nearly a quarter over his last contract,’ he said.

‘We are hugely honoured to have a broadcaster of such brilliance at the BBC.

‘And this is a great example of giving audiences both the best talent and the best value.’

The BBC is clamping down on presenters’ use of social media.

Davie added: ‘Gary knows that he has responsibilities to the BBC in terms of his use of social media.’

BBC Chairman, David Clementi, said: ‘This Annual Report tells the story of a BBC that remains of huge value at home and abroad, but is not without considerable challenges.

‘Going into the coronavirus crisis the BBC already had 31% less to spend on UK public services, than if the licence fee had risen with inflation since 2010.

‘Now the severe impact of Covid-19 means that we have to save an extra £125m – on top of additional significant savings – in a tougher than ever marketplace.

‘In this context, the BBC must redouble its efforts to serve all audiences, while maximising commercial revenues and supporting the creative industries’ recovery across the UK.