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- Winning the race…. - 20th November 2024
- More turbulence - 19th November 2024
During 23 years with the BBC, our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, was paid a fraction of what presenters earn today, so is shocked by the release of figures which show the corporation pays the top star more than £1,300,000!
I always considered myself extremely well paid when I was at BBC Cymru Wales (BBC CW) – at less than £40,000 a year.
I liked to compare myself with someone working in a factory, and I knew he or she would be very happy with this kind of money.
This was 2010, but now the salaries are stratospheric, and even allowing for inflation the figures are mind-blowing.
Perhaps they are part of the massive payments to so-called ‘personalities’.
For example, Match of the Day (MotD) star Gary Lineker tops the list with a salary of more than £1,300,000 and he’s closely followed by Radio 2 breakfast show host Zoe Ball.
Even the scandal-hit Huw Edwards (who’s not on our screens any more after what happened) was at number three ‘earning’ £475,000-£479,999 (up from £435,000-£439,999).
Cardiff-born Jason Mohammad was paid £245,000-£249,999 (and this was actually DOWN slightly from £255,000-£259,999!).
Let’s look in a bit more detail at the background to one of the people who is paid such enormous sums – Mr Edwards.
When she was at the BBC as chair between June 2023 and March 2024, specialising in cultural and broadcasting policy, Dame Elan Closs Stephens DBE, DL, FLSW, spelt out how they had tried to handle the issues surrounding Mr Edwards.
She and Director General (DG) Tim Davie (who introduced the extraordinary payments list), were forced to answer important queries from peers, following suggestions that it did not properly investigate the original complaint.
Dame Elan declared that despite “huge pressure” to name Mr Edwards, the corporation “had a duty to act with some calm and rationality in the face of lack of rationality and lack of calm”.
This came after days of speculation about who the presenter was who had been suspended for allegedly paying £35,000 to a teenager in exchange for sexually explicit images, and Mr Edwards was finally ‘outed’ by his wife.
Harmful claims then emerged about Mr Edwards’ actions generally at the BBC, but MailOnline said that senior executives “moaned” about missing Wimbledon and the Ashes to deal with them.
There have been accusations that apart from the main story involving one young person, others were involved too, and that the presenter broke Covid-19 lockdown rules to meet one of them.
It has been claimed that Mr Edwards sent ‘menacing’ texts to one individual, and further allegations emerged following the original ones made in The Sun (the paper said it had a dossier of his alleged activities, but has chosen not to publish).
He was also accused of sending inappropriate messages to BBC employees. According to Newsnight, one current staff member claimed they were contacted on social media by him, and the messages left them feeling uncomfortable as well as awkward.
The messages were reportedly suggestive in nature, appeared to be flirtatious, and referred to the appearance of Mr Edwards’ colleague. “There is a power dynamic that makes this inappropriate”, the staff member said.
Another BBC employee alleged that Mr Edwards had also sent them a private message on social media which commented, too, on their appearance and gave them a “cold shudder”.
Mr Edwards is proudly Welsh (he is originally from Bridgend), and this controversy came hard on the heels of others, with Mr Davie now under huge pressure.
One former executive at the corporation told me: “Davie’s leadership credentials are in the spotlight. First the Lineker fiasco and now the Edwards’ public relations car crash. These episodes have done immeasurable damage to the BBC and both could have been avoided by immediate intervention”.
During the days in which Mr Edwards went unnamed as the presenter at the centre of the alleged scandal, the publicist and strategist Mark Berkowski told Times Radio: “We’ve got a situation where it’s an ongoing car crash and the BBC is so glacial about how they’re dealing with this, because this is a 21st century problem,”
David Keighley, the former BBC news producer and director of News-watch, spoke of “reputational damage” to the man’s colleagues.
However the supposed attitude of senior executives during the crisis also made headlines. One official reportedly said: “The only time I’ve seen my wife this weekend is when she was on TV”, adding: “We are all so sick and tired of these people”. The Times also reported it.
A spoof mock up of a former BBC logo which circulated on the internet may not have been accurate, but showed the depths the corporation’s reputation sank to in the eyes of the public. It said: “BBC – Blokes Bumming Children”.
This reputation will have sunk even lower after news now that even a controversial presenter who is not on our screens today because of hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons, was paid over £475,000 – with others also being given enormous sums of public money…
