The low number of ethnic minority names on the BBC’s list of its best-paid talent is provoking an angry response inside the corporation this weekend, likely to equal the initial shock over the gender pay imbalance.
In terms of social makeup, the situation is substantially worse behind the scenes, disgruntled staff say, with too many white middle-class people making decisions about news priorities and content.
“This list of presenter pay looks pretty bad, but it will hopefully expose a much greater problem about the way the BBC works,” said one news producer who is from an ethnic minority.
Black and Asian programme-makers and campaigners, such as Sir Lenny Henry, are now calling for Ofcom, the industry watchdog, to intervene and for energetic recruitment drives among under-represented communities.
“This is the dirty secret of what our industry really looks like behind the camera,” Henry said last week.
The comedian has claimed that only 9% of BBC programme-makers are from ethnic minority backgrounds. The broadcaster’s figure of 14% was skewed, he said, because it included administrative staff and those working for foreign language networks, who were not in control of the news agenda.
Only six of the 96 people earning more than £150,000 are black or mixed-race and just four are Asian. Of these, two – the newsreader George Alagiah and the DJ Trevor Nelson – earn more than £250,000. None of them featured among those earning the top 24 salaries. The other eight non-white stars on the list, including the EastEnders actors Tameka Empson and Diane Parish, the economics editor Kamal Ahmed and broadcaster Moira Stuart, all earn between £150,000 and £199,999 a year.
A spokesman for the BBC told the Observer that fixing the imbalance in all sectors of the publicly funded broadcasting organisation was already a top priority. He added that among the recent entrants to the list of on-screen talent paid more than £150,000, 20% were black, Asian or ethnic minority employees.
Last week the BBC’s head of news James Harding, whose salary is £340,000, is said to have admitted to staff that new salary deals had been agreed in haste before the list was published, to correct some of the anomalies exposed. These deals are not reflected in the released list of names. The Today programme presenter John Humphrys, for one, has confirmed taking a salary cut since the list was compiled.
On the day of the list’s publication Clive Myrie, who is black and not paid enough to feature, was anchorman on News at Ten. The show’s main, white presenter Huw Edwards is the BBC’s sixth-highest paid on the list, earning £550,000 to £599,999. The best-paid employee from a non-white background, according to the list, is the radio and television presenter Mishal Husain, who earned between £200,000 and £250,000.
Alan Yentob, presenter and editor of the BBC2 arts show Imagine, who is paid more than £200,000, told the Observer that pressure to bring down all salaries has been an overriding issue at the broadcaster since Tony Hall’s arrival as director general in 2013. “There are issues to be addressed and there is no sense of complacency,” he said, “but we have made big strides with on-screen diversity. I do think on the [black and ethnic minority] side of things there is an issue with presenters’ pay, however.”
The ethnic imbalance visible at the top of the published pay list underplayed the scale of the problem, said one BBC anchorwoman, since a high number of leading white presenters were not included as most of their pay came through a production company hired by the BBC, rather than directly from the licence fee.
David Dimbleby, host of Question Time, is one such case. Other BBC game show presenters, television chefs, gardening experts and comedy panellists are also well paid via production companies.
Off-screen, Harding, James Purnell, director of radio and education, Ian Katz, editor of BBC2’s Newsnight, and Sarah Sands, editor of Radio 4’s Today programme, are all paid more than £150,000 a year, and are also white.