Top Male BBC Stars Will Take A Pay Cut After Gender Wage Gap Scandal

Six male BBC presenters have agreed to take a pay cut following a gender pay gap controversy over the summer.

Huw Edwards, Nicky Campbell, John Humphrys, Jon Sopel, Nick Robinson, and Jeremy Vine have all agreed to take less money, according to BBC News.

In a statement, the BBC said they were “grateful” to the six journalists who agreed to take the pay cut and that they’re still working out the details of the new salaries.

While it hasn’t been confirmed exactly how much money the BBC stars will be making now, Humphrys did say that he will be making “hugely less” than the £600,000 he had been making previously, and rumors are swirling that the Today and Mastermind presenter will be making between £250,000 and £300,000, or roughly half than his previous salary.

“It seemed fair,” Humphrys said. “The BBC used to have, in the good old days, an awful lot of money. It no longer has an awful lot of money. I was earning a lot of money and it seemed entirely proper to me that I should take a few pay cuts.”

Humphrys had previously joked about male presenters taking a pay cut in order to make things more equitable, but he later apologized for his comments.

Vine, meanwhile, talked about how he supported his female co-workers and that they deserved the same amount of money that the male journalists were making for the same work.

“It’s just a no-brainer,” he said. “So it wasn’t a problem for me to accept one [a pay cut].”

Vine is the highest-earning man to take a pay cut. He earned between £700,000 and £749,999 in 2016 and 2017. Sopel earned the least amount, taking in between £200,000 and £249,000.

This comes after a huge gender wage gap scandal broke at the BBC. Over the summer, it was revealed that two-thirds of the on-air talent who earned over £150,000 were men and the top seven earners at the BBC were men.

Then, less than a month ago, Carrie Gracie resigned as China editor after learning that her male co-workers made a lot more money than she did. The two male international editors reportedly earned at least 50 percent more than the two female international editors at the BBC. Gracie was earning just £135,000 a year.

According to the Washington Post, Gracie wrote an open letter calling the BBC’s pay structure “secretive and illegal” and said that they now had a “crisis of trust” with the public.

Gracie will now be working at the BBC in London. She will appear in front of a committee to talk about the gender wage gap and expects to be “paid equally.”