The BBC’s annual report has been published, with Gary Lineker and Zoe Ball topping the star salaries list, probably for the last time. The pair have occupied the top two slots on the rankings every year since 2020, but both have recently exited their respective programmes. Ball left the Radio 2 Breakfast show in December, three quarters of the way through the financial year, while Lineker recently stood down from the BBC sooner than planned after reposting a social media post about Zionism that included an illustration considered antisemitic.
Scott Mills has taken over the Radio 2 breakfast show, while Kelly Cates, Mark Chapman and Gabby Logan are the new faces of Match of the Day. Their new salaries are all expected to appear in full next year. However, there are plenty of other stars who make huge sums of money from the BBC whose names never appear on the list, due to the criteria used to compile it.
The BBC publishes the names and salaries of stars and executives who earn above a certain threshold every year. But while there are many stars the BBC employs directly, the corporation also contracts a large number of production companies to make some of its programmes. The stars who are subsequently employed by those production companies are not directly employed by the BBC, and therefore not on the salaries list.
Because BBC Studios is a commercial organisation, not underpinned by the licence fee, it is in competition for business with the BBC, streaming services and other broadcasters. As a result, its salaries aren’t included, so that there is a level playing field for it to compete in the commercial market. To make things more complicated, some shows which air on the BBC are not solely funded by it.
It would be almost impossible to come up with a full, exhaustive list, but here are a few examples of names who are absent, in no particular order. Rylan Clark is missing, despite hosting a weekly Radio 2 show, covering the Eurovision Song Contest, fronting an Italian travel series with his friend Robert Rinder, and his special one-off interview programmes with Cher and Mariah Carey.
His fellow X Factor graduate Stacey Solomon is also not listed, even though she fronts Sort Your Life Out and appears on her own reality TV series with husband Joe Swash. Rob Brydon would be included on a more comprehensive list for hosting Would I Lie To You?, as well as his role in Gavin & Stacey’s Christmas special, and his new job fronting the corporation’s forthcoming competition format Destination X.
His Would I Lie To You? co-star Lee Mack would also be listed if directly employed by the BBC, thanks to his role as team captain, as well as for writing and starring in sitcom Not Going Out. David Mitchell would also have made the list, not just due to his role as the show’s other team captain, but also for BBC work such as his lead acting role in drama Ludwig.
Another popular Friday night panel show, Have I Got News For You would also see team captains Paul Merton and Ian Hislop appear on the list. On one tetchy exchange on Have I Got News For You in 2019, then-MP Johnny Mercer suggested Hislop earned £20,000 per episode – a figure Hislop did not dispute.
Other stars who do not appear include Alan Carr, Amanda Holden, Alison Hammond, Jools Holland and Dannii Minogue. Quiz show hosts as a breed are generally nowhere to be seen. Ross Kemp does not appear for Bridge of Lies, nor does Sandi Toksvig for QI.
Victoria Coren-Mitchell does not appear for Only Connect, while Sue Perkins is absent for Chess Masters: The Endgame. The weekday edition of Pointless would almost certainly land Alexander Armstrong on the list if compiled differently, along with his Pointless Celebrities co-star Richard Osman, who also fronts BBC Two’s House of Games.
Romesh Ranganathan hosts a variety of programmes for the BBC, including a weekend Radio 2 show, The Weakest Link and his Misinvestigations series, but is unlisted. The huge number of high-profile actors who appear in BBC dramas and comedies are missing, too.
These include Sherwood, Mr Loverman, Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, Ludwig, and The Responder. Other popular BBC dramas and comedies not eligible to appear on the list include The Gold, Rebus, This City Is Ours, Blue Lights, Mrs Brown’s Boys, and the Gavin & Stacey Christmas special.
Stars who appear in continuing dramas such as Death in Paradise, Waterloo Road, Casualty, EastEnders and Call The Midwife also do not appear. Elsewhere, Morning Live presenters Michelle Ackerley and Gethin Jones are absent, as are the stars of Homes Under The Hammer, Bargain Hunt, The Repair Shop and Saturday Kitchen.
There are some other stars who fall into a middle category – those who do appear on the list, but only for some of their BBC work. For example, Vernon Kay is listed for his weekday Radio 2 show, but if he co-hosts an episode of The One Show, his fee for that is not included in his published salary.
Similarly, Lauren Laverne does not appear on the list this year. She would be only be eligible for her BBC Radio 6 music show, as Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs and The One Show are produced by BBC Studios. The One Show’s other presenters, such as Alex Jones, Roman Kemp, Clara Amfo, Angellica Bell, Ronan Keating, Alex Scott and countless others also wouldn’t be listed – although some appear for other BBC work.
Presenters such as Clive Myrie, Fiona Bruce, Evan Davis and Amol Rajan are listed for their work on news programmes, but not for the entertainment and documentary formats they also front. As we reported last year, one name who would potentially be at the very top of a more complete list is Michael McIntyre.
He is effectively the corporation’s equivalent of ITV’s Ant & Dec, hired to front Saturday night shows throughout the year such as The Wheel and his Big Show. Elsewhere, Bradley Walsh would likely feature for anchoring Gladiators and Blankety Blank, while Graham Norton would appear for commentating on Eurovision and his BBC One chat show.
Claudia Winkleman is another of the corporation’s biggest names, as the host of Strictly Come Dancing and The Traitors, arguably the BBC’s biggest new hit of recent years. She also filled in for Norton on his chat show this year. Top Gear may have been rested, but its former lead anchor Paddy McGuinness now fronts a Sunday programme on Radio 2, and also took over from Gregg Wallace as the host of Inside The Factory.
McGuinness’s former Top Gear co-star Freddie Flintoff has similarly gone on to front Field Of Dreams following the motoring show’s hiatus. Gregg Wallace may have been sacked, but until his departure he would have appeared on a more comprehensive list for the huge number of MasterChef episodes he fronted, as would his co-star John Torode.
Every big name associated with Strictly is missing, with Tess Daly, Shirley Ballas, Anton Du Beke, Motsi Mabuse and Craig Revel Horwood all unlisted. The Apprentice has been one of the BBC’s biggest hits for two decades, but the star responsible for its success, Lord Sugar, does not have his salary published.
His assistants Baroness Brady and Tim Campbell don’t either. And the BBC’s other big business-based show, Dragons’ Den, does not list the salaries for its investors Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden, Sara Davies, Touker Suleyman and Steven Bartlett.
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