Gary Lineker, the controversial Match of the Day host took home an eye-watering £1.75m from the corporation last year, while his fellow pundit Alan Shearer got £440,000. Other high-earning sports pundits include Jermaine Jenas on £210,000 a year and Ian Wright on £205,000, while John McEnroe earns £190,000 for taking part in the BBC’s Wimbledon coverage.
Even though many leading male news and current affairs presenters such as Huw Edwards, Jeremy Vine, and Nicky Campbell took pay cuts following a public outcry over their salaries, the sports department instead decided to increase the amount it pays to on-screen pundits such as Shearer and Wright in the last year.
The figures, contained in the corporation’s annual report, will come under increased scrutiny after the BBC announced plans to scrap the free TV licence fee for most over-75s, arguing it needed the money to protect its investment in programming.
The BBC chairman, David Clementi, blamed the government for the cuts to free licences. He said: “This was not a decision we wanted to take and it was decision we were required to take by legislation.” He also said it was “nonsense” to suggest that cutting the salaries of leading stars would cover the cost of providing the benefit to over-75s: “The sums don’t add up.”
The total amount the BBC paid for their ‘stars’ rose by almost £11m in the last year which is an annual increase of more than 7% to £158.6m. Amid tough market conditions for the media industry, the BBC also hired more than 1,000 new staff. In total, the corporation, including commercial operations such as BBC Studios, grew employee numbers from 21,431 to 22,401.
The increase in staff came despite the BBC reporting a drop of almost £200m in annual income from £5.06bn to £4.88bn. Income from the licence fee dropped by 3.7% year on year to £3.69bn mostly due by people moving to new subscription based services or not paying their licence fees at all now.
The BBC’s annual pay disclosures only takes into account employees who earn £150,000 a year while working directly for the corporation.It does not cover those who are employed by independent production companies to make programmes on the BBC’s behalf – including shows such as Strictly Come Dancing, which are made by the commercial BBC Studios arm. As a result, many prominent figures associated with major BBC programmes do not feature on the list.
UNN Opinion-
The BBC is intending on scrapping the free licence for over 75s whilst continuing to pay these outrageous salaries. Not only that but they are a liberal, metropolitan, globalist propaganda machine spewing out propaganda to the masses. They are supposed to be an impartial organisation but their coverage of Brexit has been nothing less than a scandal.
People need to ditch their TV’s and no longer have a TV licence. They need to support new media like ours and the many new channels & sites filling the void. To put things in perspective Gary Lineker will easily earn more in one hour than anyone at UNN will earn in a year yet he reads from a teleprompter and creates no original content.
The licence fee needs to be scrapped entirely and then the BBC left to fend for itself in the commercial world. We guarantee you that they would collapse immediately and no tears would be shed from us or the British Public. Change is coming but it cannot come soon enough.
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Lead Correspondent | David Clews is the Lead Correspondent for UNN, with over 20 years of political/campaigning experience and a wealth of social media and communication skills David gets to the heart of what is really important to the real people of the UK.
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