What the BBC’s biggest stars really earn – and why it may surprise you
It’s BBC salaries season, and – with annual pay of £1.35 million – Gary Lineker leads the field as usual. But there’s as much, if not more, speculation about the names absent from the list – the likes of Michael McIntyre, Claudia Winkleman, Romesh Ranganathan, Graham Norton and Alexander Armstrong.
The BBC doesn’t have to report their salaries because the above stars trade as limited companies or appear in shows made by independent production companies, including Strictly Come Dancing’s home BBC Studios. In both cases, the BBC pays a fee to the company which includes a presenter fee, but the company chooses how to distribute that cash.
Ferreting out exactly what these sums are likely to total is a difficult job. Limited companies don’t have to publish their accounts until a year after their trading year ends and are small enough to refuse to break out the amounts they pay directors and staff. Meanwhile, short of a personal confession, the only people with a legally accurate idea of those stars’ incomes are their accountants or business partners and these were unsurprisingly reluctant to speak on the subject.
A ring around the industry reveals a similar aversion to discussing the money, but talent agents, managers and producers were willing to give broad outlines of what they might expect for talent in specific show types at the Beeb. The first point most people made is that, despite the hype, the BBC is a stingy employer.
“Honestly, I don’t tend to push clients to the BBC,” said one comedy talent manager. “Comedians always risk getting fired very publicly by a corporation that loves to apologise and the presenter fees are generally lower than Channel 4 or ITV.”
If a comic or presenter turns up on a pre-existing BBC format, he explains – such as Romesh Ranganathan on The Weakest Link – they’ll have a buyout contract or, at best, an equity contract which limits their earnings to the per show fee.
“You would be surprised by the names on buyout contracts who are just getting £30k per show,” he explains. “Channel 4, that’s £40-50k and ITV can go far higher. If it’s a BBC equity contract then after a certain number of repeats and sales, 17 per cent of the extra money is split between those on an equity contract, but for a light entertainment show repeats payments are very unlikely. I can’t see Romesh in any BBC shows that he devised. He’ll be on around £350,000 for the Weakest Link, the same for Misadventures which has just ended.” So, not bad but no Lineker.
Perhaps surprisingly, the same is true for big stars like Claudia Winkleman. She has no stake in the formats for Strictly or The Traitors – which was originally a Dutch format. In 2017, when Strictly was still an in-house BBC show, Winkleman was the highest paid-female celebrity, earning between £450,000 and £500,000 for Strictly, her Radio 2 programme and The Great British Sewing Bee. There will have been salary hikes, and her Traitors pay will push that up but “she’s unlikely to be getting £1 million, closer to £800,000 plus,” said one producer. “Although the brand work and corporate work she gets on the back of it should take her to seven figures.”
Winkleman has just parted company with her agents at YMU for a new company owned by her former agent and her husband, film producer Kris Thykier, the producer reports. He suspects the new operation will be working on formats she has a stake in, pointing to Graham Norton and Michael McIntyre’s level of wealth.
Whilst both McIntyre and Norton run their business through production companies and limited companies, the two presenters report their earnings slightly differently. McIntyre’s two companies – his personal company Breachcroft Ltd and his co-owned TV production company Hungry Mcbear, which makes his shows The Wheel and Michael McIntyre’s Big Show – both take advantage of section 477 of the limited companies act which allows companies turning over less than £10.2 million to avoid posting a full audit to Companies House.
As a result, only the companies’ assets are published – Breachcroft Ltd’s assets almost tripled from £1.14 million to £3.25 million in the 12 months to April 2022 and Hungry McBear’s owners are sitting on assets of £1.8 million in the year ending December 2022.
Norton’s So Television, as an ITV subsidiary, had its results folded into ITV’s general accounts from 2022, but So Television’s last accounts for 2021 show he earned £3.025 million from presenter fees, production fees and royalties.
“Michael is host, co-owns the production company and gets 50 per cent of the production fees so he’s easily in the Graham Norton ballpark,” one talent manager suggested.
As for Alexander Armstrong? The BBC pays independent production companies between £20,000 and £130,000 per episode for a daytime entertainment show. On a long running show like Pointless, there may be deals either way, one producer explains. “If you’ve got a long lasting contract for lots of episodes over a number of years that’s valuable security in these troubled times so the Corporation is going to be pushing for a bulk discount while the indie is pushing for an increase as the show is vital to daytime,” he says.
He speculates that Richard Osman and Armstrong would be on £20,000 per episode, possibly less. Osman has reduced his appearances but was involved in devising the format so would earn from overseas sales and production fees. With recent seasons running to 55 episodes, however, £20,000 a pop means trousering a cool £1.1 million for Armstrong.
When this is repeated back to the producer there’s a long pause. “That does sound an awful lot,” he says after what seems like a long silence. “I’m not sure of my numbers. You absolutely aren’t going to use my name are you? Things are so tight in TV at the moment. You could lose your job for chatting presenters’ salaries.”