Gary Lineker has again topped the BBC’s pay league — earning hundreds of thousands pounds and more than double what the director-general takes home.
Figures published in the annual report show the former Tottenham and England striker — who has strongly denied being the BBC presenter said to have paid a teenager more than £35,000 for sexually explicit photos — received between £1,350,000 and £1,354,999 in 2022/23.
In April Lineker was at the centre of a Twitter storm and suspended from Match of the Day for one weekend after criticising the government’s language around migrants and comparing it to the language used in Nazi Germany.
The next highest paid presenter was Zoe Ball, who took home between £980,000 and £984,999 for her Radio 2 breakfast show.
The BBC publishes talent pay of anyone earning above £178,000 in bands rather than exact figures though senior management, including director-general Tim Davie, have their exact pay published and the report shows he was paid £528,000.
Other big earners identified in the report include DJ Greg James, paid between £395,000 and £399,999, and Northern Irish radio presenter Stephen Nolan who is paid £400,000-£404,999.
Other current affairs stars earning high sums include Laura Kuenssberg who was paid £305,000-£309,999, Sophie Raworth who got £365,000-£369,999 and George Alagiah who was paid £335,000-£339,999.
Lineker’s fellow Match of the Day star Alan Shearer earns between £445,000 and £449,999. Other high earners include Fiona Bruce, paid between £395,000 and £399,999, Lauren Laverne who made between £390,000 and £394,999 and BBC Breakfast presenter Naga Munchetty, who took home a pay packet of £335,000 to £339,999.
The report defends BBC pay by saying it “operates within a fast-changing market with intense competition for talent and dramatic growth among some new media, streaming and digital technology companies offering highly attractive packages”.
It added that it tried to “balance market-competitive pay with the need to demonstrate value for money to the licence fee payer”.
The report also shows the BBC’s median gender pay gap has gone up to 7.3 per cent and blames it partly on having to employ more technology experts — an industry it says has “higher proportions of men” working in it.
