A BBC Controversy

High profile female presenters at the BBC have called out the organisation’s ingrained sexism. They asked the head of BBC, Lord Hall, to immediately tackle the gender pay gap. The BBC pays its best male star five times more than its best-paid female presenter.

The BBC is a “prized national asset”. It reaches 95 per cent of British people every week and has a global audience of 372 million.

Presenters like Clare Blading, Angela Rippon, Alex Jones and Emily Maitlis, pressed for the pay gap to be closed immediately, rather than in Hall’s 2020 deadline.

The women composed a letter that stated “You have said that you will “sort” the gender pay gap by 2020, but the BBC has known about the pay disparity for years. We all want to go on the record to call upon you to act now”.

The women say they are “prepared to meet” Lord Hall to ensure “future generations of women do not face this kind of discrimination”.

In response to the letter, Lord Hall declared that the BBC is committed to being at the “forefront of change” and that he had made the concern a “personal priority”. He also noted that “across the BBC, our provisional figures [display] the pay gap is 10% against the national average of 18%”.

Equalities Minister Justine Greening, stated that it is “impossible not to be shocked just how different some of those differentials were”.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, agreed to sign the letter too and asked the BBC to “look very hard at itself”.

Prior to this, the BBC had refused to expose information because of the recruitment of great talent at rival broadcasters. The discrepancy gained exposure once the government demanded that they publish the salaries of their highest earners.