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Eddie Mair Leaves Radio 4. The 'pay Gender' Row Goes On.

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andy-hughes | 10:22 Mon 02nd Jul 2018 | Film, Media & TV
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It's been announced that Eddie Mair is leaving the BBC, possibly for LBC and a huge pay rise.

Once again the BBC is incapable of seeing what is going on under its corporate nose, and acting to make things right.

The notion that male presenters should take a pay cut to bring them in line with female presenters is one way of uniformly insulting and upsetting the entire workforce.

With one fell swoop, the BBC tells its female presenters that they are not worth paying as much as male presenters, and it tells male presenters that they are not worth as much as they though they were, and they are only worth as much as female presenters, who are clearly valued less, because they are paid less.

Mr Mair, to his eternal credit, refused to play this ludicrous game, and continued to draw his salary commensurate with his outstanding abilities as a journalist and presenter, coupled with his huge popularity with listeners - factor that is top of the listeners' priorities, but bottom of the BBC's.

His perception that he will be overlooked for the Question Time role, having been fatuously ignored for Newsnight in favour of the dubious Evan Davis, means that he is taking his skills to a rival broadcaster, where he will be appreciated and paid in line with his value.


Is the BBC management actually populated by idiots, or are they simply wilfully ignoring what is going on?
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" It's quite simple & nothing to do with 'the gender gap' , the BBC just can't afford the pay rates that can be offered by large commercial organisations."
There aren't many large commercial organisations who are guaranteed 3.7 billion coming in every year. If they would stop paying over 2 million to the likes of Chris Evans, apparently ten times what ken Bruce gets, then perhaps they could afford to pay all their broadcasting staff, male and female more realistic and equal wages.
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Vulcan - Chris Evans may not be paid that amount personally.

There was always that same hoo-hah about his 'multi-million pound salary' at Channel 4, which in fact was paid to his production company, and financed the production of the TV shows he made for them.

It's highly unlikely that £2 million goes to him, but if it does, good luck to him that's market forces, which the government are mad keen on.
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I have read this morning that Mr Mair not only did not refuse to take a pay cut, but had offered to do so in writing - maybe the BBC should have made that clear?
>>>My question was rhetorical

No it wasn't.

If your partner comes in to the house soaking wet with an umbrella up and you ask "It is raining?" THAT is a rhetorical question.

Yours was not.
In his weekly article in the Radio Times Eddie Mair states:
None of my thinking has been influenced by the BBC's pay problems. I'd offered, in writing, to take a cut. It tickled me to read sometimes that I was apparently refusing. The first article appeared before we'd even discussed pay, and later it was said I was staying off work in some kind of protest: in fact, as RT readers know, I was in hospital trying to avoid sepsis.
//There you are BBC, you didn't have to pay six figures for a 'management consultant' - it's just common sense, and that's free.//

uh, yes, but raising the pay of all women staff to the level enjoyed by male staff isn't remotely free!
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jno - // uh, yes, but raising the pay of all women staff to the level enjoyed by male staff isn't remotely free! //

Indeed not - but from a publicly funded broadcaster with the reputation of the BBC, it is a moral imperative.
a moral imperative but a fiscal (and political) impossibility, I'm afraid.

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